The Apologist
by Bonehammer
Summary: The team is forced to take action against one of their own and the threat of Bastion grows clearer and closer. An old nemesis prepares to turn the situation to his advantage. Gambit may hold the key to their survival, but is he willing to pay the price?
1. 00 Teasing

**Disclaimer: **Owner: Marvel. Money: None. Suing: useless.  
**Rating: **T to M. If you can read the comics, you can read this.  
**Setting: **Comicverse. The story takes place after XM #58 and UXM #340, so Gambit and Joseph had their catfight, Iceman is on leave and Xavier in the slammer, Bastion is preparing his move and Graydon Creed is being a dick. Although this piece was intended to fit as snug as possible into existing continuity, I took a few liberties with canon.  
I took it easy with the accents, just because I'm sick of seeing my files filled with red angleworms crawling under every third line, and "Merkin (Louisiana)" is not on any Word pulldown list. Also, this is not my first language; I write in English to reach a wider audience. I plead you to point me in the direction of any blatant errors.  
**Foreword:** This fic was born in the remote 2001 from a desire to make sense of a few botchered storylines from the 90's. Yet it took me a while to gather ideas and even longer to put them down on paper - and in the meanwhile, better writers had their say. Hence this story isn't going to be by any means original. Having said that, dim the lights, put on some background music, and let's begin.

The Apologist  
- Prelude -  
Teasing

Tiny workers clad in white swarmed around the underground corridor, watched over by intimidating soldiers in armor.  
Bastion observed the infirmary ward from the surveillance cameras, and recalled a documentary on termites he had seen once. Was the comparison demeaning? Perhaps, but fitting. Little it mattered that the human race was forced to resort to the strategies of insects, just as long as this ensured its survival.

But that line of thought was nonfunctional, and acknowledging that he returned to the task at hand.  
Like an avalanche descending swiftly onto an unsuspecting township, Operation: Zero Tolerance had gained momentum and magnitude. Soon it would reach a critical point, beyond which a strike was not just advised but _necessary_. To maintain and conceal such an amount of personnel and staff was only possible for a limited time, all the more when your enemies were able to see through walls and inside minds.

The X-Men's actions of late had been... inconsistent, and he could not conclude whether because of poor planning or a deliberate attempt at blindsiding him. On one instance, they still seemed to operate in their usual cavalier fashion and had gone so far as to avert a terrorist attack on an airliner - open-faced, with costumes and codenames. On the other hand, they had infiltrated Creed's entourage, although in an amaterurish manner that betrayed their inexperience. From Bastion's records, pragmatism had _not_ been their way of operating for a very long time; he rather expected them to go hide, sackclothed, into a hole in the ground, after the example set by their mentor. The snake was still alive even with its head cut off... _and buried_, he mused throwing a quick glance at the block of cells down the corridor.

He pressed the intercom badge on his uniform, dialing Prospero's department.  
"Rebirt and Derangement, speaking" a smug voice replied, followed by a volley of laughter.  
Bastion's face tightened into a frown. This habit of miscalling the Research and Development section had to cease. This was not supposed to be _funny_!

"Go find Doctor Harper and send him to my office, private" he said and felt the laughter choke when his voice was recognized. "And then report yourself to your direct superior for misconduct."

Ten minutes later Prospero was standing in front of Bastion's large desk, with a folder in his hand and bloodstains on his labcoat.  
"What took you so long?" Bastion enquired, harshly. He didn't carry a watch: he had no need for one. His organism could tell the time with better precision than any clock. Prospero's lateness did not really disappoint him: it was just a... human trait. Something he was supposed to accept, although not necessarily appreciate.

Prospero bowed his head and stared at his feet. "An emergency requiring my immediate at-tention" he duly explained, with the faintest hint of a lisp in his voice. "One of the s-subjects rejected the nanotechnologic implants."

"Did you solve the problem?"

"We lost the... host." A strange light appeared in Prospero's eyes. "She was un, unfit for the graftings. We're bound to fail, from time to time, given the s-state the patients are in."

Bastion seized the folder from Prospero's hands. Olga Bassett (born Rudel), aged 55 and looking even older in the digital picture taken upon her arrival. Type I diabetes, stage IIb ductal carcinoma, and doctors were discussing amputation of the right leg when Prospero had enlisted her in the Prime Sentinel project.

Bastion's office oversaw the surgery ward and he glanced for a while out of the window, down at the rows of beds. Only a handful of the people lying in there were volunteers and even they had no idea about the extent of the process they were undergoing. They thought it was reversible; nothing had been told them that would challenge their belief.  
But the mass of the Prime Sentinels had been chosen among the homeless, the lonely, the unfit. Of course, they'd had no voice in the matter. But then, who had? The mutants had not pleaded by a high authority to be born the way they were born. _Bastion's_ creators had surely never appealed for his opinion. And they, in turn, were driven by internal forces they couldn't understand, let alone master: survival instincts encoded in their genes, fears denned in the intricate wiring of the brain. Deep inside every living creature there was a source code to be executed. No one could claim themselves free; all the so-called choices lay within the range of their inborn programming: jump, forgive, breathe fire, suspect, bamf. To believe otherwise was a pretense.

"I already explained my reasons for the choice of subjects. A victory that deprives us of the better part of a generation is a hollow one." Bastion nodded in a final manner. "The question is not debatable. Destroy this record" he added, handing the folder to Prospero again.  
He stood up from his chair and left the office, strode along the steel catwalk that ran across the yard at ten meters' height, not once turning back to see whether his adjutant was keeping pace, and headed for the restricted access area. The forthcoming conversation was better kept confidential.

"Prime Sentinels" Bastion stated. "How's the program proceeding? I need figures."

"Regarding the current b-batch, we're as ready as we will ever be. But we need another two weeks before the last ones become operational. Shortening the time between interventions affects s-stamina."

Bastion frowned. "We need to be able to move swiftly, Harper... two weeks at the latest. Public sentiment has never been so strongly against mutants and we have to make the most of it, before some harmless freak is lynched and the liberals get on their high horses again. This Onslaught event was totally unexpected, but it is playing out to our favor."

Prospero nodded. "And got us rid of those heroes, to boot" he stated, matter-of-factly, as the faintest of smiles dawned on his inexpressive face. "People who might have opposed to what we're up to..."

Bastion reacted with the swiftness of a greased lightning. He grabbed Harper by the collar, lifting the scientist until his feet were a good ten inches from the ground.  
"You are never to be heard again from me or from anyone else discussing this matter. You find this amusing?" Bastion swung his arm and Prospero's back hit the hard edge of a file drawer. "Would you still smirk if I gave order to implant Prime circuitry in you, Harper? Would you cry, would you feel?"

Prospero's answer came out with bell-like clarity regardless of the death grip on his voicebox. "No. I don't think I would."

"Then consider this, and by the way... show proper respect for the heroes who gave their lives to stop the mutant menace, and for the people that are undergoing the procedure. Your workers are making jokes. I don't like it."

"They n-need to relieve... from what they see..." Prospero gargled.

Bastion dropped him, and the scientist tripped and nearly fell when his feet found the ground again.  
"The volunteers down there would not be here if it wasn't for the heroes' sacrifice. Imagine what would they think in hearing _this_ coming from the lead scientist. From now on... keep your thoughts to yourself."

"Trust me on that" Prospero rebuked, adjusting the crumpled collar of his labcoat, and Bastion looked away. "Anyway, you w-wanted figures. We can activate three thousand units for the first week as a crack contingent and another ten within the first month, soon as the last subjects exit the acquaintance period."

"I need five thousand. What about weaponry?"

"Not all subjects are able to withstand the full armament configuration. Maybe if I could..." Prospero explained, but Bastion raised a hand and silenced him.

"There is only one mutant who could prevail single-handedly upon Prime Sentinels. And he has become irrelevant. Xavier's pupils are taming him well, teaching him manners and trimming his talons. I don't see what you're worrying about, Prospero" Bastion said. "Prime Sentinels are less powerful than the androids. We know that, we've discussed that. You're doing fine. Just keep it up, and have five thousand units ready by the end of next week." And he dismissed his aide with a quick gesture.

On his way back to the surgery ward, Prospero cast a look inside the third cell in the row. The sign on the door only read, "M-13 - Maximum security". The man inside was sleeping, or meditating, in a lotus-like position on his bunk. The devil only knew how he'd managed to get on it in the first place, but there he was. Dressed in orange overalls, his bald head shining under the livid neon lights, he looked like a Buddhist monk in a Chinese prison. Alerted by the opening of the spy-hole, he raised his head, apprehensive at first, then relaxed.

"Oh. You," he said. There was a ring to his hollow voice that could have been taken as dismissive, but Prospero knew better than to take offence. Xavier's crippled body was being spared, but his spirit was a different matter. Bastion would question, threaten, taunt, even hit him on a bad day; every empty hour was spent in steeling himself for the next interrogation. No surprise that Prospero, a pawn who just stared at him from the eye spy from time to time, did not arise his suspicion.  
And neither Bastion's.  
Prospero smiled, a grin that would've scared his creator, if he had been there to see it.

"Am I not entitled to the usual speech you give to Bastion, M-13? About how humans and mutants are all brothers and just need to hug each other more? I stand offended."

Xavier raised a hand and for an instant Prospero thought he would've gone so far as to shoot him the bird, but the hand stopped and fell limp again over a limp thigh.  
Broken.  
Prospero's smile never faded as he closed the eye spy and walked on.

_Next: Breakfast at Xavier's. _

* * *

Right people, this one was a little tantalizer. Feel free to tell me what you think of it. 


	2. 01 Dawning

**Disclaimer: **Owner: Marvel. Money: none. Suing: useless.  
**Rating: **T. See the first chapter for summary and stuff.  
**Note: **If the character of Francesca seems to be tugging at your clothes and screaming: "I'm a plot device! Stomp me, I'm a plot device!" please ignore her. I couldn't think of another way to resolve Gambit's dilemma.

The apologist  
Chapter One -  
Dawning

Despite what others thought, Samuel Guthrie was not an early bird; sleeping in was the only luxury he had been able to afford for years, and still his favorite. But the merest hint of daylight was enough to awake him, and the shattered blinders had not been replaced yet. After a dozen minutes of useless stirring and thrashing, he resigned. The duvet got kicked off the bed; he dressed up and went downstairs.

He took a look at the clock on the kitchen wall and figured Mr. Summers was due to show up soon; since he was at it, he'd better make breakfast for everybody. Whistling quietly to himself, he put the kettle on, then went to the windows, relishing the cool rosy light of dawn as he stretched, milking the stiffness of the morning away from his back and joints.

From the large windows, he spotted Mr. Logan on the front lawn, performing kata moves in a fight against several imaginary enemies. The Wolverine was faster and nimbler now, without the added weight of his metal bones: his body flowed from a move to another like quicksilver, graceful lethal and awesome. He suddenly stopped, bent in a perfect kowtow; then moved away and Sam lost sight of him. He tried to trace him among the foliage, in vain, until the kettle whistled and recalled him back to his job.

He was breaking eggs in a tureen when the shapeless shadow _thwacked!_ into the window.

His blast shield flared like a shockwave; the eggs rolled out of the table and smashed onto the floor, the fork tinkled against the tiles. Sam turned, ready to fight; and stared wide-eyed at the beastlike shape, perched backlighted on the window sill and grinning like a madman.

"Booh!" Logan yelled.

Before Sam could think of an answer, he was gone in a rustling of branches, laughing. Sam picked up the fork and wiped the floor, sighing. Another morning at the mansion, another journey into weirdness. But it was good to see the Wolverine back to being human enough to enjoy a practical joke.

He was trying to figure out how the percolator worked - it sported several custom add-ons of McCoy-ish workmanship - when Gambit moseyed into the kitchen.

"_Bon matin_, Sam."

"Morning, Mr. LeBeau."

The formal reply made the Cajun huff and shake his head. He snatched a slice of plain toasted bread and made himself some instant coffee, moving around the kitchen as if sleepwalking, with slow, uncertain paces and unpredictable movements. He nearly piled into Sam so many times that he wondered whether he had developed selective blindness, but he had understood, from some casual remarks, that Gambit simply didn't _do_ mornings: nothing personal. And he'd left the mansion soon after the fight with Magneto - er, Joseph... he probably hadn't even seen the bed that night.

However, he was trying to be urbane, as he demonstrated by wearily pushing towards Sam a bag of homemade biscuits taken from his personal cupboard, without a word; Sam took one out of courtesy, and repented immediately. Cinnamon and ginger and... _cloves?_ might've been okay for the Cajun's fireproof buds, but he was an apple pie guy. He rinsed the offending flavor with a gulp of coffee and the half-eaten pastry was hidden under a dish for a timely disposal.

After the coffee, Gambit seemed to collect some degree of awareness: lying back against the chair, he turned halfway and said, with a sleepy smile: "Not de best time to join de worldwide vanguard of mutant pride, eh Sam?"

"I wonder whether there's ever been a _good_ time, Remy. Good morning, everyone." Psylocke entered the kitchen from the east door, lacing the belt of a blue _kimono_ embroidered with tiny flowers.

"Remember when _you_ joined, with the mansion destroyed and the team scattered to all winds?" she recalled, sitting down and leaning a cup towards him.

Gambit smirked, slowly, good humor dawning on his weasel features as he poured her some hot water from the kettle. "'Course I remember, Betsy." He cast a look around, scrutinizing the signs of the last fight: charred curtains and halos of smoke marring the walls and ceiling. "Looks like yesterday."

* * *

"I am unable to express how delighted I feel at seeing you taking part in the maintenace of this abode" Hank grinned as he plopped another armful of spare boards onto the floor.

"Mmmph. Ah fenfe fome farcafm fomin'" Precariously perched on the folding ladder, Gambit spoke through a mouthful of nails as he coaxed the wooden plank into position. The replacement windows wouldn't be ready until a week and the wind blew through the shattered blinders; they had to keep the drafts at bay somehow or the elements would finish what Onslaught had begun.

"Well, considering how just yesterday you managed to bring about even more damage to the premises..."

Gambit's reply was punctuated with loud bangs as he nailed the board onto the battered frame. "_Feh_. Joe fixed everytin' back, didn' he?"

As he hammered away, a floorboard, weakened by the fire, gave under and the whole ladder swayed and swerved. The hammer struck the nail sideways, slid and landed hard on his hand.

"_Tabern...!_" he cried. The mansion vanished around him.

_Not a hammer_.

_The man at the desk wears a tasteful Gucci suit with matching vest. The golden Rolex on his left cuff, _à la _Agnelli, screams upstart, but prevents his tattoos from showing whenever he takes a look at the time. He speaks with no trace of an accent and his voice is soft though his eyes are burning with despise and shame. _

_"Please don't outstretch my patience, LeBeau-_sama_. We have an agreement and this is the only reason why you haven't been shot dead yet." _

_"Ah, oui, Oyabuno-_san_. Dat, and de fact I can blow you and your men off your Prada shoes faster than you can say _'Domo arigato'_, perhaps?"_

_Now that's a tall tale. Your best achievement this week has been charging a handful of confetti, and it took you six minutes twenty. And hotel rooms, even expensive _suites _like this one, are spectacularly devoid of ammunition. _

_"I suppose so" Oyabuno acknowledges. "And this would leave us where?" _

_Past him, Yukio holds a knife to Francesca's throat. Her eyes meet yours for a second, and narrow as if for a laugh. As if all this was extremely funny.  
__You are so mad you can't even think straight. _

_Outside, the tolling bells call the Milanese to the child and scare the pigeons of Piazza del Duomo into a frenzied flight around the spires. No one moves.  
__Defeated, you hand over the bundle with cautious movements. It is passed from bodyguard to bodyguard into the hands of the leading man, who unwraps it with grace. _

_The _mempo _is inside, undamaged and pristine. The lacquered features - part man, part demon, part tiger - are frozed in an undying war cry. It is easy to understand how come Harinaka was feared and respected on the battlefield; looking at the frightening mask you'd easily forget that there's just a man concealed behind it. _

_One last glance is all you can snatch before it is wrapped and buried in his case again._

_"Just me bein' curious, Oyabuno-_san_. How ugly was the old _ronin _dat he had to cover his mug with such an affair?" _

_For all answer, Oyabuno steps back and grins in despise. "The exact phrase would be _"sour grapes"_, right?" _

_You sneer, ashamed that your veneer has gotten so thin, furious that you let this get to you. "Fine" you bark. "I got your pretty face from you, you got my pretty face from me. Let her go, and we're even." _

_"I'm afraid we're not even yet, Lebeau-_sama_" Oyabuno replies, shaking his head slowly. The mutilation showed as he waved his hand and there's no doubt the head of staff of the Harinaka clan had to pay for not being able to secure the familial battle suit.  
__As he speaks, as if this had been rehearsed a thousand times, one of his men has taken out a wooden board covered in cloth and is putting it on the floor in front of you. _

_Francesca is sobbing now. You'd want to scream, to hell with the bowing and scraping, let's be done with it. But the bastards want to savor this one and the only thing you can do is yield.  
__You adjust the board before your knees and lift the immaculate cloth, whistling softly as you see the hatchet. The gleaming steel stands out against the deep brown wood and it is both light and heavy in your hand as you raise it to assay the cutting edge. _

_"Y'know, dis be de first time somebody actually **asks** me to give him de finger." _

"I'm appealing to your senses, Cajun. Are you at all well?" the Beast enquired from miles and miles away. The room - charred woodwork, cracked plaster and tattered tapestry - came back around him, and he jolted, countering the movement of the ladder under him. All this had lasted a fraction of a second, but maybe a fraction of a second too much.

"Not a hammer..." he found himself saying "...not a hammer."

"Remy, my comrade, what you're holding is definitely not a sickle, either. What ails you? Please, speak to me. You're as pale as paper."

"I'm okay, _Béte_. Just hammered my pinky is all."

_But not wit' a hammer. _

_'Cos I remember wrong. _

_The voice is frightening in its familiarity. It comes from the same place that the memory sprung out of and leaves a wave of standing hairs on your forearms. _

_No, I remember dat well. I just forgot. And forgot I had forgotten. _

_So not everything you ever have done or been is known to you - as if the lot you know wasn't enough. The sudden notion weighs on your stomach like cold marble. It's like going back to the _bayou _after the river has swollen and retreated; the safe trails all vanished, the shifting sands waiting in ambush under the moon, the swollen carrions rotting in the open. The ominous, uncharted terrain seems to call you down.  
__You _have _to ride up to the challenge. Are you or aren't you Gambit?_

He brought his hand to his temples, frowning. The world was still revolving slowly around his head; a deep voice recalled him to reality.

"You beat your thumb and your head hurts?" Hank was losing his temper. "Please, you're obviously unwell. Go for a lie-in or such and leave the housekeeping to the healthy."

"No, I can manage."

"Cajun" the Beast growled. "I'm serious."

Gambit knew it better than to argue with McCoy in his the-doctor-is-in persona. He descended the ladder, handed over the hammer, and signed out.  
The vertigo had given way to numbness; an unpleasant feeling, a fullness, like his head had been stuffed with warm cotton wool. He wandered through suddenly unfamiliar corridors until he found himself outside; an innate sense of direction carried him farther and farther from the Mansion.

_It's wrong. It's all wrong. I remember de hatchet. But _ma _hand here, she don't remember at all: one two three four five little piggies, dey all home an' safe. And when I met Yukio after all dis time, it meant nothin' to me. _

_'Cos _he _fixed it. _

_But it can' be. Dat was _later.

_I couldn' tell it was _later.

_On de other hand, I couldn' tell it was _before_. An' I could sit here arguing with myself till I get blue in de face._

_Yukio knows me by Remy. I've been in a coma. Dere's gotta be some damage._

_Den again, it don' make any sense otherwise. And my memory is still good in any other respect. _

_'Cept dat I didn' even remember Francesca till an hour ago. _

_But I do remember her now. Wanna bet? _

* * *

The phone booth at the junction between Graymalkin Lane and the Westchester road must've heard more weirdness than a father confessor, Gambit thought as he kicked out the inevitable can of beer and shut the door. He dialed the number by memory, glancing at the ads for Thai massage and weight loss plastered onto the walls, and prepared to wait for a long time. Outside, the engine of the Harley ticked and clicked as it cooled.

The monotone buzzed in his ears and he imagined the reaction at the other end of the line; the panic, the struggle against the unexpected, the potentially dangerous. Even friends and relatives had to call Francesca at set times now. He had almost given up when the call was answered.

"_Pronto?_" the unsteady voice said.

"_Buonasera, _Francesca."

"_Chi..._"

"_Ti ricordi di me? _"

There was a long pause, punctuated with noises as if she was fumbling with the receiver, or propping against the wall for support, or both.

"I wish I could forget, Remy" came out in a breath.

Or at least that was what it sounded like. Gambit thought of an appropriate reply, came up empty-handed. Here's what happens when you learn Italian in three months and don't brush on it for four years.

"_Che cosa vuoi?_"

Rummaging through his aching brain for forgotten words, he managed to put together his request. It was so bad she suggested that they switch to English.

"I... need you to tell me if I had... scars when we met."

"Scars? _Oh, santo Dio_. Why do you want to know? Is someone after you?"

Gambit gritted his teeth with enough force to make them creak. Even an ocean away, he could feel the fear creeping back into her voice. He had no right to do this, not after the breakdown and the shrinks and the therapies...

...but he needed to know.

"No, Francesca. It's just... I'm having dem removed, an' de surgeon wants to know how ol' dey are"

She sighed, apparently more at peace now. "No, you didn't have scars... not at that time. _Dio santo_, Remy, I don't understand how you carry on with... with... Wasn't the sore enough?"

"W-what sore?" he asked, already feeling his ears ringing from the buzz - no not again notagain -

"That big wound along your chest. Is that what you mean? It was infected and never healed, so I brought you to _Dottor_ Pallavicini. He gave you thirty stitches. Do you remember that now? Remy?"

But Gambit was in no condition to reply. The buzz had turned to a roar that drowned every other sound, every single thought; a mnemonic whiteout that nothing could survive.

When he came to himself again, he was half kneeling, half slumped onto the booth floor, and his head seemed to be splitting in two. The receiver was hanging from the cord, mute.

He pulled himself and hung up. Well, what was he expecting?

It had been a cool sunny day, so he went to town to get his cigarettes, only to discover he didn't have enough change for the vending machine. The three dollars and a quarter that he remembered collecting from the telephone were really just a couple dimes. With his mouth dry, he stared at the tin coins on his sweaty palm as if they had been stigmatae.

_She told me den. We _spoke_... an' I sure as hell don' even remember she picked up de telephone._

_

* * *

Next: Harry's Hideaway hypotheses._


	3. 02 Digging

**Disclaimer: **Owner: Marvel. Money: none. Suing: useless.  
**Rating: **T. See the first chapter for summary and stuff.  
**Note:** This continuity-dense piece serves more or less to clear minds about some old plots. Sorry that most of these conversations already took place on Internet. But things get going, too, I swear.

The Apologist  
Chapter Two-  
Digging

The girls had stayed out for dinner after shopping in the city, so it was a men-only event at Harry's and the attitude was a little coarser than the usual. Unnoticed in the din, Logan scooped whatever was left of a salver of fried wings onto his plate, then returned his attention to the small talking going around. As expected, the bachelors were teasing the hubbie - and he didn't want to lose a word of it.

"You gotta think of the positive sides! A telepath will never ask you The Question."

"Which would be...?"

"_'Scott, darling, do you think this skirt makes my rear look big?'_"

"Oh, they do, they do... only not _aloud_" Warren replied with a half-groan. A volley of laughter, fueled from alcohol, followed.

Scott sipped his beer and took the chance of a lull in the conversation to drop the bomb. "Guys, I need your opinion."

"'Bout what?"

"About the elephant in the living room. About Joseph."

A wave of disappointment ran across the table. Leave it to Cyke to spoil the fun on a Saturday evening - over Magneto, no less.

"Hmm." A gut-deep growl from Logan. "Joseph what?"

"So far, we've always thought Joseph was Magneto. Maybe we should consider the possible alternatives."

Bishop, still as sober as a judge, gave Harry's crowded hall a disapproving glance. "Wouldn't it be better to discuss this in the War Room?"

"Easy, Bishop. It's Harry's Hideaway on a Saturday evening. Nobody's paying any attention to us."

"Yeah. They're used to us band of buggers. And the War Room's still flooded."

"Can' smoke in dere, too." Gambit's lighter was out of gas, so he monkey-butted his cigarette with Logan's illicit Havana, drawing a long mouthful to lighten it, and exhaled a long whirlwinding puff of gray smoke. "Any thoughts, Chief?"

"Plenty." Scott replied. "The most disturbing being, what if he is _not_ Magneto?"

The Wolverine didn't seem too concerned. "All I can say is that he reeks just like ol' Lehnsherr. If it quacks..."

"Logan, my very friend, my alter ego sojourned among us for quite a while in our midst without you having so much of an inkling" Hank pointed out. Dragged out of his lab under the threat of sabotaging his next experiment if he didn't join the evening out, he was experiencing all the symptoms of a workaholic in withdrawal: an intellectual challenge would perhaps ease that feeling of guilt for not keeping watch over his Petri dishes.

"Point taken" Wolverine conceded, returning to his beer. "But he's Maggie... though not quite Maggie. Same way as Piotr or Alex were different when they stepped through the Siege Perilous."

"But he can't have gone through it... the gizmo was destroyed years ago"

"I know," Logan shrugged, "I just liked the idea."

Pensively, Warren rocked his glass of whisky (Scotch, not the rotgut Wolverine drank, and a 15-years old single malt to boot - Harry kept a special supply only for him). He was taking advantage of his image inducer to keep his newly found wings only half-folded, and Bishop kept on jolting at being tickled by invisible feathers.  
"Well, he could be some _sort_ of Maggie" he offered. "The one from your understudy's world, for example, Hank?"

Logan shrugged. "Well, that'd explain why he smells the same as Buckethead. But why would he be younger?"

"The survivors that we know from that world came here scattered all along the timeline. The Dark Beast looked the same age as Hank, but Forge reports that he admittedly was already here twenty years ago, when he engineered the Morlocks."

Nobody saw the cigarette rocking and almost falling from Gambit's lips.  
"He engineered _what_?"

"Haven't done your homework yet, Cajun?" Bishop grinned.

"Give him a break, Bishop" Scott conceded. "I put it in the log just yesterday." Then, to Gambit: "X-Factor is done interrogating the Dark Beast. We've been forwarded a copy of the transcripts."

"Which are to be taken with the proverbial pinch of sodium chloride" Hank cautioned. "My _doppelganger_ proved particularly prone to spreading misinformation..."

"And that's about the only thing he was good at doing" Warren broke off with a sly smile. "No offence, Hank, but your double must've had more than a few bats in his belfry. All the clever preparation and make-believe... for what? Go hiding into a house full of teeps? Give me a _break_..."

"I don't think so," Scott pointed out. "Essex scared him much more than we did, and the mansion is still the best place to hide anyway. The disrupters prevent him from opening a tesseract on the grounds, and..."

"Beg pardon" Gambit broke off, suddenly standing up and almost stumbling into Scott's legs, sprawled under the table. A choir of annoyed protests followed him as he pushed aside the patrons on his way to the yard.

_Malchance de merde_. Gambit leaned against the trunk, breathing raggedly.  
The Dark Beast. Of all the miserable fuckers tinkering with things that should be left alone. The revelation had left his bloodstream filled with ground ice, his mouth dry. _X-Fuckin' Factor. Of all de places to end locked up. With Forge, Misty and Vicky makes three. Sure I've been dealt a hand of deuces dis time around._  
Why couldn't anything stay simple?  
He looked up, past the foliage and the sparse clouds, as if expecting a shooting star to spell out the answer as it fell. The cigarette had taken to smelling like horse manure and he dropped it on the gravel, unfinished.  
Regaining composure, he strolled to one of the wooden benches, deserted now for the briskness of the season. Thanks heaven he had never let any of the sawbones lay a finger on him. Except, of course - What tests had Hank run on him, in the weeks he had spent unconscious? What if _that other one_ had viewed the results? _More_ things he needed to know, to take care of, if he wanted... _everything..._ to continue. He shrugged and drew a long sigh, exhaling a long serpent of gray smoke that rose and vanished against the northern evening sky. Then he stood up and went back to Harry's.

Bishop took a deep breath. With Gambit out of earshot, it was now or never.  
"I agree with Warren. He could be from that other universe" he argumented. "There's something else that I recalled - something that Sinister pried out of my memory, but I didn't want to talk about it, before... well, now."

"Spill it, Bish" Scott invited.

"You all know Joseph is working on a device to control Rogue's powers."  
Bishop raised his eyes from the glass and met a wall of sympathetic looks. Yes, it was the latest running joke in the Mansion. The boy was delusional other than amnesiac, if he thought he'd succeed where the Prof and Forge had thrown in the towel... but just as long as tinkering with that idea kept him occupied, it was excusable. Of course, poor Rogue was in for a hell of a disappointment, and as for Gambit... well, his overgrown ego could do with a pruning from time to time.

"Well, in that timeline, Magneto was... married to Rogue. Apparently, he could touch her without consequences. They even had a child. A boy called Charles."

Silence descended for a second on the table as Joseph's interest for Rogue took new, uneasy connotations.

"And something's been haunting me since read those logs yesterday," Bishop continued. "About that other world... the one that apparently never was, because... the past has been reverted, right? But the Morlocks were created twenty years ago from someone stranded from _that_ reality. So, in the end _nothing_ has changed."

"It's not like this, Bishop. The existence of the Morlocks, our memories of them, are _retroactive_." Scott leaned back, trying to recollect his thoughts, regretting that Nathan wasn't around to sort out this thing... as far as time-travel was concerned, he was quite the frequent flyer.

"No." Bishop shook his head. "My memories survived Legion's timewarp - _twice_. So how come I knew of them from _my_ timeline? And "Morlocks" was the XSE codeword for civilians in an AO. Somehow, someone remembered."

"This only proves that..." Beast tried to protest, but then Scott dropped the bomb.  
"Well, then maybe we're _still_ in that timeline" he offered, and immediately realized it was the worst he could say: Bishop's complexion turned greyish.

"But I've been told, endless times, that what I knew didn't matter anymore, that it wasn't going to happen. I've **tried** to warn you..."

Logan shrugged. "Yeah, pity we didn't listen. And even if we _had_ listened, you were barking up the wrong tree all the time."

Warren's eyebrows rose to unprecedented heights; sure, there were times when Logan's fatalistic attitude was useful. And then there were times like this.  
"But you **prevented** Onslaught from killing us" he broke out, trying to reassure a rather upset Bishop with little success. A tiny muscle was twitching uncontrollably under the tattooed skin of a man who was still seventy years from being born.

"Much of dat, tho."

Everybody turned. Gambit was back and was now standing at the other side of the table, leaning against one of the wooden pillars as if in need for support.

"Feel any better, Cajun?" Logan asked, a hint of derision in his voice for a grown man who didn't know when to say "enough". Or how to say it.

"In a funk, thank you. Nothin' to do with de drinkin', tho. It occurred to me all of a sudden. Funny how dese things kinda sneak up on you, _non_?"

They stared, waiting for an explanation. As if the air inside Harry's hadn't been filled enough with stale smoke, Gambit fished another cigarette out of its packet and dampened the filter with a fast lick.

"Remy, don't..." Hank warned, but it was too late. Sheltering his doing with the other hand, Gambit pinched the cigarette between two fingers. There was a faint hiss and a magenta glow from beneath his fingers, and the tip started smoldering. Scott's jaw clenched a few times.

"Prof ain't your Traitor" the Cajun stated matter-of-factly.

Bishop's eyes flared with murderous intensity - regardless of Gambit's belatedly proved innocence, it _still_ took his most to suffer the man. Especially when he casually tossed these sweeping statements that reminded Bishop so much of his older, lunatic counterpart. He glared at the Cajun with a glance that could drive nails.

"Any evidence in support of your theory, LeBeau?"

Gambit breathed smoke as he replied. Leaning over the table, eyes shining red like traffic lights, surrounded by puffs of slate-colored miasma, he looked like he had just missed the last hellboat home.  
"It's sittin' right in front of me, _mon ami_. It's **your** past. **You** can' change **any**thin'."

"What do you mean?" The white in Bishop's eyes had never been so wide out of a fight.

Gambit rolled his eyes to the ceiling, as if he was recapping a lesson to a particularly slow-minded pupil, and spelled out slowly: "You come back. You save de X-Men. So dere can be no Witness. An' no Bishop... to come back. An' save dem. So dey're killed. Leadin' to de Witness. An' to you." He shook his head. "Time can flow uninterrupted only if you're bound to fail." He turned to Hank, in search for support. "_Bête_?"

Beast's eyebrows met in a massive scowl. "Rather crude and Cajun-flavored, but nevertheless correct, avocation of Pauli's exclusion principle. Too drunk to controvert appropriately. Beg pardon."

"Hang on a minute" Cannonball broke off. "Cable..."

"Nice try, Sam." Gambit pressed on, merciless. "Cable's born in **dis** time an' de hundredth century be de future for him as well as for us. When it came to saving Kelly's hide, de X-Men from the **present** were told to do it. Now dere's a pattern, _hein_? But Bishie is from de future an' dere be no way he can change dat future, no more dan I can grab my hair and pull myself up." He looked straight at Bishop, then at Scott. "Am I right?"

"Possibly." Scott frowned beneath his glasses. A lesson in time-travelling logic in Harry's pub, on a Saturday evening, from Remy LeBeau? The man who once had gone and looked up "Schrödinger cat" in a cookbook? The world had definitely gone off its rails.

"Nice theory, Gumbo" Logan agreed. "You're forgetting Ray, though."  
He shot the briefest of glares at Scott: _It should have occurred to you_, it said.

"She came from a different **timeline**, just like the Dark Beast and that Nate Grey bloke. Phoenix was alive, Prof wasn't walking. De weird part is, dat's just the way it is now, _non_?"

Wolverine seemed lost, and looked around as if in search for support. "Whadja big brains say? Hank?"

Beast pursed his lips exaggeratedly and his fake image fluttered, trying to keep up. "The mutant you _shelected_ is momentarily unavailable. Please try again later" he slurred, and sank forward. His skull met the table with a bang.

Scott stood up. "Okay, that does it. Checkout time, guys. Thank you for your contribution. We'll get back on this."

Lazily, the X-Men stood up, gathered their coats and closed to the counter. As he got to his feet, Hank tried to conceal a thunderous belch behind a massive paw; in vain. The sound he produced wouldn't be out of place in a remake of _Wolf_. Or _Porky's_.

"Glad to hear you still appreciate my brew" Harry commented from behind the bar, and laughter and hisses followed. Sam supportively took Beast by an arm and helped him reach the exit; the rest of the group tagged along.

They took the shortcut through the woods and were almost at the Mansion, when Hank, now being frog-marched by both Sam and Logan, turned halfway to address Gambit. The brisk evening air had cleared his mind, and he felt brilliant and sophisticated. Surely the Cajun wouldn't mind a little teasing.

"Remy, I think you lost something earlier at Harry's."

Gambit arched an eyebrow. "_Qu'est que c'est..._what?"

"Your bayou dumbass veneer. Must... fallen _shomewhere_ in the briars. Want us to _shearch_ for it or you believe you can do without?"

Sparse laughter as some of the boys closed to hear.

"What did..." Warren said, but couldn't finish; Bishop made his move.

It was a low blow, but he didn't mind. Still laughing, he approached the unsuspecting Gambit, passed an arm around his shoulder, then pulled and twisted like he was wringing a rag. There was a crack like greenwood.  
The X-Men froze. Gambit, bent at an impossible angle, punched Bishop's arms desperately; another man would've had his neck broken by now, but the Cajun had the spine of an eel.

"Do tell, LeBeau" Bishop urged. "Am I bound to fail?" His eyes were shining dully with raw energy, his voice was an abrupt _staccato_ that didn't become a pupil of Xavier.

"Knock it off. **Now**" Cyclops ordered, one hand ready aside his glasses.

Bishop just stared back at him; with his powers, the man was not a menace. Logan was too entangled to act in time, Beast was outright plastered; the others were insignificant. His ambush had been timed perfectly.

"Am I not changing things?" he urged. "How are you going to raise me in the future, if I snap your neck here and now?"

Gambit swallowed - not a minor feat, given the situation. He knew Bishop wasn't really going to carry out his threat, but this stunt was not just for display either. White flies swarmed in and out of his sight.

"Easy" he cawed. "Not... not him... me."

"How can you be so sure?"

"LeBeau" Gambit replied. "I'd never... _ever_... use dat name... too much inference... believe me"

"Hmm" Bishop conceded, remembering that he had been the first one to use Gambit's family name. "**Who's** the Witness then?"

"_Hhh..._ heck if I know dat..."

Someone said, "Enough, Bishop" and he was released and fell to his knees, gulping the fresh evening air. The man who had just tried to wring his windpipe helped him back onto his feet.  
"I'd try to find it out if I were you" Bishop hissed in his ear. "I'd want to find out so I could kill him before he hatches."

* * *

Bishop faced directly into the camera, as if unsure whether it would qualify as friend or foe. He was in full X.S.E. paraphernalia and his long wavy hair dated the tape to a few weeks after his arrival.

_"I have one request to make, sir. Gambit must not access this record." _

Xavier's voice came from off the screen. _"At the cost of repeating myself, Bishop, Gambit has been with us for quite a time and his loyalty has never been in doubt. Your suspicion borders on paranoia." _

_"Perhaps I'm wrong. I'd love to be wrong. But if I'm right, I don't want to give him a head start." _

The Professor sighed. _"Well then. Let's say that we will ask for your permission before the tape is shown to Gambit. Is that acceptable?"_

Bishop pursed his lips as he pondered the offer. _"It will do." _

_"Let's begin, then." _

And Bishop began. He spoke for almost an hour, in a dull, low voice that almost didn't let the grief emerge. He told about Stark-Fujikawa corporation and its deeds; the slush funds, the experimentation, the bribery. A boy would be taken from a slum to be put in an orphanage to which he never would arrive; a law would pass that allowed the use of new and untested drugs which would turn out to be mutagenic or worse; the air was poisonous with chemicals, the food genetically altered; and behind all this, beyond the figureheads and the nested companies and the cloned cellphones, there would be the hand of the Witness.

_"I gathered enough evidence to satisfy a hundred courts"_ Bishop recalled through gritted teeth. _"He did not deny, just complimented me for my detective skills, smiling all the time. It was like he was unable to feel shame. My superiors dropped the charges; I got a suspension." _

_"And what about other mutants? Was the Witness the only public figure?" _

_"Genesis - whom you call Forge - hated the Witness with a passion, but the XSE couldn't do without the money and tech that Fujikawa provided. Magneto had not been seen in the flesh in years, but he would make statements that were divulgated by his Acolytes. People paid little attention to him anyway. They thought that the real Magneto was... incapacitated and the one portrayed was at best a spokesman and at worst an impostor." _

_"That will do for now. Thank you, Bishop. End recording."_

The War Room multi-monitor flickered and went blue. Gambit stared at the empty screen.

"An' you dragged me here in de middle of a Buffy marathon for **dis**?"

Beast, sitting beside him, raised an eyebrow. "I thought you could use the information. Bishop actually asked that you see it."

The thief stood up. "Y'know, _Bète_, dere be a sayin' in de Guild. _A tool dat's at home, a rope dat's too short, an' half a second ago won' be any help._ To dat I add, _an' neither eighty-somethin' years in de future will_."

"_You_ said that Bishop's future is going to happen irregardingly of his warnings."

"Just jerkin' his chain." A shrug added emphasis to Gambit's calculated casualness.

"Remy, my friend" Hank spoke patiently. "I may have been heavily intoxicated, but that makes me slow-witted, not downright stupid. You sounded convincing yesterday, something, I'm afraid, you're failing at right now." He turned and left, the armored doors of the War Room hissing shut behind him. Gambit, left alone in the room, conceded himself the doubtful relief of a shiver.

* * *

It would have been much easier if he had been able to take the Blackbird, Gambit mused as the landscape flowed slowly ten thousand feet below him. But that would mean riding with a copilot to fly the jet home, and he didn't want any company to where he was going. So it was down to an American Airlines 737, which was like riding a slug when one was used to cruise at Mach 4.5. Hostesses were cute, at least, and one of them left him her phone number. In another circumstance, he would've given it a thought, but now he just couldn't get into the mood.

Bishop's qualms made sense: if this was still his timeline, someone _had_ to be the Witness. And perhaps he would've liked to take part in the investigation, but Gambit felt that the mutant from the future had already done his share. There was a risk that further interferences from him would only rivet his timeline into place even tighter. Besides, there was no hope of gaining Bishop's sympathy; his sole loyalty was to The Dream... one could actually _hear_ the capital letters in his voice whenever he mentioned it.  
And God help whoever happened to stand in The Dream's way.

The informal, but tidy, attire and state license helped him get past airport security with no more than a passing glance from the officers. With no baggage to claim, he walked out into the long-term park. A family of four was obviously leaving on a holiday, parents hastily pulling out tons of luggage from the trunk of a dusty gray suburban while the kids relieved themselves from the forced immobility of the car trip by chasing each other around the parking lot. In hot pursuit, they piled into Gambit and the boy fell back right on his butt.  
"Whoa! Watch your step, man, you blind or what?" he muttered as he pulled himself up and dusted his clothes with exaggerate slaps. He couldn't be older than ten, but his surly attitude and poise made him look like a full-blown teenager.  
"Excuse my brother" the girl intervened. "He's a dork." And she ran away shrilling and cackling. The boy shot Gambit a murderous glance.  
"Creep" he spat out as he turned heels, running after his sister.  
Ten minutes later, as the Norman Rockwell family was quarreling with the check-in clerk about baggage weight restrictions, Gambit headed towards the Gulf at the wheel of their gray Ford.

The CAMPER'S HEAVEN - GARDENING AND D.I.Y. notice caught his attention among the mayhem of signs and billboards as he was leaving the outskirts of town behind. He spent fifteen minutes inside the store, looking at the impressive range of digging gear, before deciding on an Army surplus entrenching tool that could change from pick to shovel; it was not the most suited tool for the job, but it had a dull olive drab finish that would go unnoticed in the dark.

He took a room in a highway motel, paying cash. By this time, the designer jacket, polo neck and pants had been taken off for more comfortable clothes, casual and crumpled enough that he wouldn't look out of place in a roadside pigsty such as that one. The driving license, issued in Maine, was authentic, albeit stolen. The receptionist was female, young, and overweight, the worst possible combination for nosiness; however, to his greatest puzzlement, her eyes never left the TV set as she took a pair of keys from the rack.

"First one on the left past the vending machine".

Putting away the tear-jerking story he had prepared (including a long-lost brother, an evil stepmother, a hit'n'run and a corrupted policeman) Gambit considered the jewelry auction taking place in the 14' monitor. Shoddy casings, flawed stones, and wacky cuts - the works. Go figure.

The vending machine was out of order, and almost empty anyway. He spent the rest of the afternoon in his room, waiting for the dusk and chain-smoking in front of a cable TV he wasn't really watching - although he found himself blinking faster than normal when Charlie Chaplin shared his lunch with The Kid. He was starving, but didn't feel like eating - when on an ad-libbed gig, with only so much intelligence to rely upon, the sharper the better. After much hesitation, he resolved to make a phone order; not to Pizza Hut, but to InterFlora.

At ten, someone forced open the service entrance of the Muddy Wheels motorbike salon. The silent alarm had not been disabled and the police was on the scene in seven minutes, but no trace of the perp was found. An used, stock, black KTM 650 was missing from the window. The little scrambler bike was found the morning after, parked in front of the nearby K-Mart, and returned to the salon. All it was missing was a few ounces of gas; the tripmeter showed 26 miles.

Gambit headed for the edge of town on secondary routes, with his headlights switched off and hair whisking in the wind, navigating by memory.

He reached the place before midnight. The mesh was easy to climb, and the snapping Amstaff discovered quickly that steel shin guards and kinesthetic abilities were a devastating combination in a trespasser. Third showdown had him scuttling to his safe place underneath the rusting carcass of an Oldsmobile sedan, where he remained for the rest of the time, whimpering.

The place had expanded inordinately, but in the end Gambit found the yard he was looking for. It hadn't changed much, except for the height of the car piles, and the number and size of the thorny bushes. He had to untangle his way as he walked to the spot: a clayish hollow where the water used to collect after rainstorms. The soil, frosted with windshield specks, glittered dimly under the moonlight.

Scrubs also made his work all the more difficult; their thin, steel-strong roots were everywhere. He was sweating like a pig, and dying for a cigarette break, when the pick hit something whiter and harder than the moist soil. Frantically, he knelt into the pit and scraped out the rest of the earth with his bare hands. A skull emerged, his front bashed in halfway through, followed by a delicate necklace of backbones and long shoulderblades.

The body was still there, untouched.

Sobered from the sight, he wondered what had come over him to think otherwise. But so may strange things had happened, so many beliefs shattered, he wasn't sure about anything anymore.

He sat there until his tailbone went numb from the cold and the hardness of the ground, trying to figure out things; but his thoughts kept on stumbling upon the same questions over and over, like a crossword puzzle when you're stuck, and the mystery, like a fortress shrouded in a heavy fog, remained undefeated. He hated riddles, hated to play the waiting game; and yet too many eyes were already set on him to be able to act freely.

And what was to do anyway? Driven by false assumptions, even _he_ could be instrumental in the destruction of the Dream. His own, lesser dream: friendly faces, a place to belong to. He looked around, grateful that the pillars of wreckage were hiding the sight of the horizon. Something awful was approaching, and he didn't feel like facing it yet.

He dropped the flowers he had brought before filling the hole again, and smeared his footprints as he walked back to the gate. Dawn was about to break and the bike had better be brought back someplace inconspicuous before serious investigation started.

* * *

_Next: a sort of homecoming._


	4. 03 Gatecrashing

**Disclaimer:** Owner: Marvel. Money: none. Suing: useless.  
**Rating:** M for graphic violence. See the first chapter for summary and stuff.  
**A/N:** Sorry this was a bit late. I caught a logical flaw and had to do some last-minute rewriting. Damn action scenes.

The Apologist  
Chapter Three -  
Gatecrashing

"Home is de hunter" he murmured as the keys slid soundlessly into their catch. The Mansion had never been a welcoming house, with its dark wooden panels and ornate furniture, and its vast entrance seemed to swallow him whole as he closed the door behind and headed for the kitchen.  
The corridor was silent and dim and when he reached for the switch the lights stayed off. The emergency lamps, which should have kicked in by then, were dead as well. Quietly, he unsheathed the staff from the thigh holster and swung it open to half-length.  
He took a roundabout route to a service staircase. Attacking the X-Men in their den was an exercise in creative suicide; intruders smart enough to break inside the Mansion would be targeting either tech or intel, and both were located underground. The elevator and the stairs were compulsory passageways and easy to survey, so he headed for the first floor and the laundry chute. It was the fastest route to the lower stories, and didn't show on cadastral maps.

He was halfway through the corridor when the world swung off from under his feet and the tiles surged eager to meet him in the flesh. He raised both hands to protect his face and dropped the staff; he saw it fall, swirling and swirling and swirling, as if into a bottomless chasm. His shoulder impacted hard; he lost balance, fell, and realized he had swung himself onto the wall.

_Vertigo._

With eyes clenched shut, his insides churning, he staggered, feeling for the staff - _Marauders!_ - and crawled away, as slow as an old man - _Marauders in the Mansion!_ - picturing himself, dazed and sluggish, into the crosshairs of a thousand snipers. But no shot came.

_Alone now?_

He took cover, flattening against the wall. Vertigo's power was dimmed now that she couldn't see him; that helped the nausea a bit - now he _knew_ he was standing still, even though his spinning head wouldn't have it. And he had her position, on the landing, behind the column, give or take a yard or two. Now, a bit of luck was all that he asked for.

Ears ringing, he drew a new deck from his pocket. The cards were flat and glossy, and slided well against each other. He charged them until they sizzled against his fingers like Roman candles. He dove headfirst from behind the corner and skidded on the floor. The moment he went past the corner, the room capsized, his body tried to follow, and his throw went wide off the mark.  
Never mind. The cards spread like a swarm of locusts as they left his hand, crackling with energy. The balcony collapsed and the stairs erupted in a crimson conflagration, catching the landing between them like a pair of pinces. He couldn't hear the scream through the hysterical humming that was making his head implode, and only knew he'd scored when the room gave a last unsettling eddy and then stopped. It took a bit more for all the splinters to come down.  
He felt for his staff, pulled up, and spoke to the settling dust.

"Girl, you sure make a man's head spin".

He shook the dizziness from his head and went on, leaping and crawling among the wreckage of the stair like a giant sider-wolf. Vertigo's job was to make sure no witness was left; the real killers were way ahead, doing their worst. Early morning... some of the X-Men would be caught still in their sleep.

He stole a look into the men's wing: a body lay in the corridor, wearing only half of a gold-and-blue uniform. The fair hair and lanky build gave him away; his neck was twisted at an impossible angle, and Gambit lost no time checking for a pulse.  
The door to Rogue's suite, busted, hung at an angle from broken hinges, and his back straightened with relief. Rogue was not the one to indulge in subtleties like a locked door when lifes were at stake. But the ladies' wing was quiet, meaning that the fight had moved on.

The second body was quite a piece of loganwork, and recent, too.  
It also explained why Vertigo had been left without a support. Dark blood was still pooling in Scalphunter's open chest, and his exposed innards flowed in a cascade of shiny greens and purples from his slashed belly onto the floor; the home team had evened the score. He suppressed the smirk that was fighting for a place on his mouth.

_Stay in motion. Dey need y' farther on._

Speed was life, speed was everything. There was no sense in taking off the sweepers if Arclight and Sabretooth went on with their business just a few meters ahead, no points from his victory if it let him the only one standing upon a heap of corpses.  
He ran, following the signs of the battle, expecting an ambush behind every corner, but there was no rearguard left. He passed the Z'noxx chamber on the way to the hangar and something, a premonition, made him cast a glance inside.

It looked like the room had been knocked over; all the heavy machinery was piled and compacted against the far wall. Trapped behind a 5-ton condenser, features contorted with pain, mouth still open in a scream that would never be ended, there was Rogue.

He ignored the high-pitched shriek inside his head, ignored his brain that was fighting for shutdown, and reluctantly worked out the events. This was Scrambler's doing; Joseph must have been affected first, turned into a living magnet for anything metallic in the room. Rogue had tried to shield him with her own body, until a second pass from the Marauder had taken out her invulnerability. All that could be seen of Joseph was blood trickling from underneath the heap and pooling in a corner.

There was nothing he could do, so he made to move and found himself unable to; forced himself to picture a world that went on without her and found no desire to be in it. He felt robbed, empty, unfinished. There had to be more to the end of their road than just this silent screaming.  
In a sense, it made everything easier. No reason for being cautious, no need to show a decent veneer however thin... nothing to make him falter if it came to throw himself down the line. She was past caring; all his secrecy had come to nothing. But there were others...

_Move on. Move **on**. Go to pieces on y' own time._

The thought pried him away from the door just in time. Something unsubstantial whisked behind him, and he recoiled with the instinct of a lifetime. His backbone sprained, but the punch that was to bash his head broke against the door frame; a snowfall of plaster came down from the ceiling.  
Gambit turned, grinning among the tears. It took swiftness to catch him by surprise, and Arclight was a rough bitch with the grace of a spastic hog. He told her that, and worse, parrying and dodging and caroming across the disheveled room as she charged after him, bellowing with increasing fury the closer she got, until she lost the last shred of caution and came within reach of his staff. He caught her backhand, right above the collarbone, crushing her windpipe, and that was that. Right wrist dislocated from the recoil, but it was worth it. He left her gargling on the floor, paid one last look at the dead and dashed across the corridor.

After that, he barely noticed the bodies. Warren, a single wing still pointing towards the sky; Scrambler, beyond his vengeance now, wrung out like a rag; Prizm, no more than a layer of crystal dust on the floor, shining like castor sugar; Betsy, a bloody _deja vù_ writhing on the floor, her eyes dull, too weak to keep her guts from jutting out with every breath.

He skidded on the icy floor on his way down, and nearly piled up against the hangar doors. The X-Men had mounted a last resistance around the carcass of the Blackbird, turning a trap into a stronghold; Stormy was hovering in the eye of a catabatic snowstorm, battering the Marauders with a 170mph gale. The intruders had been forced to fall back and were now crawling for cover - all except Harpoon.  
Driving sleet and icy winds couldn't hold back the Eskimo; although bare-armed and buried halfway in the snow, he had a harpoon in his hand and a spare one ready at his side. Soon as the gale subsided, he would take his chance.

Gambit acted first; fair warning was never an option. His footsteps muffled by the snow, he slid behind him, grabbed the spare harpoon with the good arm and skewered the Marauder, powering up as he went. There was a shudder and a sharp intake of breath as charged steel went through Harpoon's armor and ribcage.  
"Ever wondered what dose whales felt?" Gambit grunted. The answer was lost in the shrapnel of bone shards.

Now, for the last ones. Storm had burnt herself out; the remnants of the tempest she had summoned were swept away and he could see two surviving Marauders peer out from their dens. Blockbuster was on the far side of the hangar, Riptide sneaking among the battered hulk of the maintenance crane, getting into position above an unsuspecting Cyclops. Gambit threw caution to the wind: he shouted a warning and ran, goofily, in the knee-deep snow. Riptide fell, hit dead-center by an optical blast. The snipers were all down, any Marauder left would need to get close and personal to do him harm, so it was safe to...

He was midway there when everything went misty red. Something warm and tacky sprayed his neck, the air in his lungs was punched out, he flew several feet and landed in a heap like a stringless puppet.  
_"Merde..."_ he wheezed, writhing on the floor. His whole head was ringing, his arms wouldn't prop him up, and everything south of his chest was a smoldering dead weight. Oblivious to all this, a part of his brain that had been keeping tally of downed Marauders was wondering why it didn't add up.  
Screams and booms echoing in his ears. The fight was going on without him. Perhaps if the X-Men were hitting back he could crawl out of sight... He told his legs to push him forward, but the message never reached; he was upturned like a turtle and screwed just as much.  
A growl, nearby. He turned; Sabretooth, walking on all fours like the beast he was. Creed bared a hedge of fangs and went for the jugular; with arms like wet cement, Gambit dug both hands into the pockets of his duster, and pulled them out full of glowing change. From this close, they made a sizzling sound, like frying bacon.

"Bite me, pussy" he whispered right into Creed's left ear as the jaws clenched on his throat.

* * *

The wail of the ending siren found him lying on the floor. He took his time before rising from the vanadium laced tiles, a little confused, as always, at the sight of himself and his battle dress in pristine condition, not battered and bloodied. He leaned onto the staff and drew a long sigh. The outcome had not changed - apparently, it never would. Too many Marauders and spread over too large an area. Several X-Men would be buried that day; he would be one of them. And this was one of the best times - he had managed to get Creed. 

_Much of dat. _

The mission score appeared on the far wall in large red capitals, while the aural interface delivered a summary of his dismal performance.  
"Property damage, 5 penalty points. Engagement in unfavorable conditions, 5 penalty points. Belated or absent backup request, 10 penalty points. Poor teamwork, 15 penalty points. Lethal use of powers (3x), 300 penalty points. Self-destructive use of powers..."

"Shuddup. An' shuddown." Easy, in hindsight; easier still for a computer. Then again, what did Cerebro know? The simulation, designed after mission logs from the Massacre, was not 100 correct. The real Harpoon was left-handed, Scrambler was taller, Blockbuster would cuss left, right and centre as he fought. And then, of course, the greatest inaccuracy.  
The number of Marauders had been misreported.

He picked up the cards he had dropped on the floor, anticipating a hot shower. It didn't matter whether it was real or simulated; the stench of blood always made him sick to his guts. But first, a trip to the Control Room, because he was really curious to know who had managed to take him by surprise like that.  
His blood froze when the door cycled open and he found himself face to face with the man inside. Cyclops swung in the chair and stared at him for a full second.  
"Excellent performance, Remy... Or terrible. Depends."

_Merde_.

"How long you been in de Control Room?" Gambit asked, wondering whether the red flares always pulsated beneath the visor like that. No, maybe it was the dim light.  
Or maybe that was Cyclops' way of looking daggers.

"Since you took out Arclight." Scott sat up and made to leave. "Marauders in the Mansion... The sim you can't win. I wondered who was running the damned scenario over and over and over."

For an instant, Gambit toyed with the idea of telling the truth. But his lips refused to form the words.  
"Sometimes y' can learn more 'bout a man by de way he loses" he offered instead, lowering his head. The door had closed behind him, and he couldn't distance himself enough from Summers in the cramped space.

"Like the _Kobayashi Maru_ test?"

The Cajun produced a strained smirk. "Funny, Scott, Y' never struck me as a Trekker. No, Gambit was thinkin' _real life_."

"All things considered... I think you did fine." The last words were muttered in a barely-audible tone.  
Gambit frowned, like he couldn't believe his ears. He had just received Field Leader's congrats for a mission in which he had been killed.

Scott's lips were strangely curled when he spoke again, as if he'd caught him cutting himself, or drowning kittens. "The standard win conditions hardly apply to this scenario. However, Gambit... isn't it a bit... I don't know... _morbid_?"

It was all the Cajun could do not to clam up again; the previous acknowledgment had left him unsettled. He knew he owed the man an explanation, but words could not express what he was feeling: that the Danger Room was nothing but fun and games unless one acted out his fears, faced them, gauged...  
"Need an _extreme_ situation... just have to know. Can I watch de log?"

"Help yourself" Cyke conceded, beckoning towards the chair. But Gambit didn't bother with sitting; he was already typing at the consolle, selecting cameras and frames. After a minute, he was staring at the screens with his mouth dry.  
The face of his assailant was never in light, but it didn't matter. If the red glowing eyes hadn't given him away, the glowing cards in his right hand surely would.  
"You've changed parameters" he said.

Scott nodded slowly. "An _extreme _situation, like you said." Behind the ruby quartz mask, his expression was inscrutable.

Gambit straightened and brandished his bo staff with white-knuckled hands, the previous appreciation vanished. Nothing would be sweeter than beating Summers to a pulp. Right. Fucking. **Now.**  
"You put Gambit in de Red Force..." he hissed, his voice coarse.  
Cyclops held his ground, staring back. There was a lot going on behind those ruby lenses that he couldn't make out. Anger, disappointment, even... _regret_?

"I thought we were way past dat shit" the Cajun pressed on.

"I did, too. Until Psylocke came out of... whatever you did to her."

_Psylocke? Oh, no, no..._  
Cyclops stood up and left the room, passing unpunished by a very crestfallen Gambit.  
"Meet me in the War Room in an hour."

* * *

There was no one else in the locker room, but he chose the farthest stall, facing the wall all the time. As a rule, he avoided the communal showers, no matter whether Hank and Logan turned up their sensitive noses at the Cajun sneaking away after a Danger Room workout, sweaty and smelling. 

He didn't want them to see the scar. It had healed well, and was thin and faint, so faint that it took all his concentration to discern the shallow discolored ridges, and just because he _knew_ they were there. Somewhere in his head he acknowledged he was just being paranoid: maybe they would never see it, probably they would never ask him. After all, they had never asked about many things. But he preferred to avoid the subject, rather than telling yet one more lie.

One more lie?  
Like getting caught blindsided by Stormy like an apprentice, concocting the lamest story ever, and see her gather all her will to pretend she believed it?  
Like charming Psylocke into forgetting what she had seen in his mind, forgetting she had ever been in there, and lose everything as his spell retorted against him?

He scrubbed himself again and again under the hot water jet. But the scar wouldn't go away.

_Next: Truth or consequences._


	5. 04 Hearing

**Disclaimer:** Owner: Marvel. Money: none. Suing: useless.  
**Ratings:** T. See the first chapter for summary and stuff.  
**Notes:** I made quite a meal of uploading this chapter. LMK if something got mauled along the way.

The Apologist  
Chapter Four -  
Hearing

"Haven't you known me long enough, Scott?" Psylocke burst out, frowning. "I may not have been trained by Saint Xavier himself, but I don't go snooping around into people's head just for the thrill of it."

Scott frowned in turn and paused the recorder. "Let's stick to the facts, Psylocke" he reminded. "And to the codenames. This is an official report. Please continue."

"Well, then. When R... when Gambit came round from his coma, and reached us in the Ready Room, he was broadcasting loudly. Actually, I had sensed him even before... a surge of horror and fear. He managed to ask about Rogue and alert us about an indefinite "danger", then he fainted again, apparently from the strain of walking all the way from the MedLab and blowing up a fireproof door..."

Scott couldn't but smile at that little sting, remembering how he had had the Cajun fix the door himself. Nothing personal: just the rule about powers in the Mansion.

"...Warren - Archangel - carried Gambit back to sick bay, and I couldn't help thinking about his words. Of course, he might have been just confusional. But there was this... wrongness to his mind, and his concern for Rogue. She could have been in trouble. "

Gambit's mouth gave the smallest twitch at the mention of Rogue. That gave Betsy some pause, and Scott leaned forward, staring at him across the table.  
The Cajun didn't seem to take notice he was being observed: his eyes were narrowed, his face withdrawn. He would've looked stoned but for the unfocused steadiness of his eyes. There was a lot of activity beyond those ember orbs, but none of it was apparently going to transpire.  
Scott sighed soundlessly. It had seemed a good idea - getting the Cajun off balance before he could make up a likeable story of his own. He had not considered this other opportunity, that Gambit would get angry when he was so obviously in the wrong.  
He also had not considered that they might be in for more than anticipated, that the improper use of powers was just the tip of the iceberg. Quietly, he beckoned Psylocke to go on.

"I admit, I didn't ask for permission and I should have. But I'm not sorry that I tried. He was unconscious and it could have lasted for hours, so... I mind-linked to him to find out why he was so worried."

"Mind-linked, _mes cons_" came the harsh reply from across the table. "You been _sneakin'_, Psylocke. Pity Remy keeps good watch in here."  
It was like someone had switched Gambit into bitch mode. He had been as as dull as a dummy for an hour; now he tapped twice at his temple, an unpleasant smirk plastered across his face.

"You will have your say later, Gambit." Scott offered. "Now, please, just let her finish."

Gambit just snorted and Betsy went on.

"As you wish. So, I _sneaked_. The first thing I noticed was the... darkness of Gambit's mindscape. His own city, New Orleans, looked like a haunted place."

Dark eyebrows rose in derision as the thief leaned forward and stage-whispered: "Betts, _p'tite_, don' know how to break dis out to you, but _somebody's_ childhood been no bed o' roses."

Scott grimaced. Psylocke chose to ignore the remark.  
"There was a feeling of impending danger, but I couldn't identify the source... I managed to stay only for a few seconds before Gambit sensed me and threw me out. I still can't figure out how he managed..." She fumbled for words. " "And that's it, more or less. Gambit sensed my presence and raised his shields before I could come any closer... and he's kept them up ever since. Right now as we speak, all that he sends out is... static. And a certain amount of vague threats... that may or may not be subconscious."

"Hm. That's enough for now." Scott turned to the man sitting in the darkest corner of the War Room. "Do you have anything to reply? Gambit?"

"No."

"Take your time" Scott offered again.

"What's to say, Cyke? I wake up, find her messin' round _ma_ head. I kick her out, period. She be glad my shields don' go all the way up, she may never come back." Silence followed, lasting long enough for them to understand that no other detail was going to be offered spontaneously.

_Who are you and what have you done to Gambit? _Scott wondered.  
"Okay - I'll second that. You had realized it was Psylocke? A teammate?"

"Yeah, so?" A quick shrug.

Scott sighed. So much for the 'knee-jerk' defense line. Remy was digging his own grave - with enthusiasm. "Had she asked permission first, would you have allowed her?"

"Hell no."

Another awkward silence followed. The Cajun was contemplating the tiles.

"Gambit, it seems that Psylocke put the incident completely out of her mind, and remembered about it just while you were away from Westchester. Is it right to assume you 'charmed' her into forgetting the whole affair?"

Gambit sighed, his previous indignation deflated. He opened his mouth twice, without a sound. In the end, he let out a faint "Tis."

"Well, that about settles the incident. You are entitled to your own privacy, Gambit."

Gambit's ember eyes widened in surprise as he worked out the meaning of that phrase. But then Cyclops went on.  
_It needs to be done. Please understand._  
"On the other hand, we can't allow your secrets to affect the others."

"Only when dey try an' pry stuff off my head." The hostility had returned, although in a more subdued way.

"With or without permission, Psylocke acted upon your warning."

"An' Remy acted upon her intrusion" Gambit rebuked.  
His line of defense was flawless: if Betsy's behavior was excusable, so was his. Unfortunately for him, Cyclops was not convinced. The Cajun had already crossed the line with his reaction to Betsy's mental escapade; if only he'd shown a bit of repentance, he would get away with it. This _so-what _attitude wasn't going to win him the jury's favor.  
It was weird - like the Cajun was asking for it. Forcing them to take the unavoidable measure with his own hostility, cornering himself with every word and gesture. Deviously, perhaps unconsciously; after all, he hadn't even called in the devil's advocates. He had fallen out with both Rogue and Logan, but Storm would still take his defence no matter what. He had saved her life, back in the Cenozoic, hadn't he? So what more proof could they possibly want?  
Scott could not afford to be _that_ naïve. Not with all the lives at stake...

"Make up your mind, Chief" Gambit warned with a huff. "Tape's running out."

And that was the final straw. _'Chief'_ made up his mind, and cleared his throat before pronouncing the sentence.  
"Psylocke, your intrusion into a teammate's private thoughts is hardly excusable, all the more since you did not warn your teammates before proceeding."

Betsy shifted her weight uncomfortably on the armchair.

"On the other hand, your intentions, at least, were good. There was little else that could be done, given the situation. I trust that it will not happen again."

She relaxed visibly. "I told you, Scott. I had to think on my feet, and then I wasn't able to recall it had happened. Now, of course, we know why. I've been... a little under the weather lately."

"I could say de same."

"We all remember and are glad you recovered, Gambit. The same goes for you. Furthermore, in the light of... recent events... I am forced to take action about what Psylocke discovered - or rather wasn't allowed to discover. For your own safety, and ours, I would run a mindprobe."

The Cajun stood up like a greased lightning.  
"Like fuckin' hell you will! You just said she shouldn' have, so you let her have another go?" He sneered. "If I knew it came to dis, I'd have tried t' get into your pants, too."  
Okay, scratch subdued.

"**_GAMBIT!_**" This was not Team Leader anymore, only a thoroughly pissed Cyclops, bolting up from his chair, his face en nuance with the red glare coming from his visor. For all answer, the Cajun looked at him knowingly. He had driven a point home - and another one for making him lose it.

"Sit down, Remy." Scott drew a deep breath and tried to recover his cool. "On a personal basis, you have my utmost sympathy. But I can't take such things lightly, not anymore. All the latest threats have come from within the team. We've had the Professor, Hank and my brother in a row. You spoke of 'danger' for Rogue yourself. Can I help it I'm worried about you? _For_ you?"

Gambit shrugged, then replied, his accent stronger than ever. "Den y'all eager to go an' take a look, see what Gambit made of?" He leaned forward, smirking. "Let's make a deal, Betsy. Y'get to rummage inside _ma_ head much as y'want. **Den** I get to strip an' search you. To each dere kinks."

Psylocke glared at him. "You're sick, LeBeau."

Scott chose to ignore that exchange. "It's okay not to like probes, Gambit. Anyway, for obvious reasons it won't be Psylocke. J... _Phoenix_ will."

"**No**. I don' give a damn who does it. Y'know it's hard to read me. Shields out of control. A telepath can get hurt pretty bad." Then he leaned back and glared directly at Scott, burning red eyes into burning red eyes.  
"And even if I had control... dat's still no. I've come here 'cos I felt to... not because I had to." Such a knowing smirk appeared on his lips, that Cyclops had to break eye contact. "Never asked for anythin' in return. _Mais ma vie_, dat's mine only."

"Not exactly, mister. Not until others have to live around you."

A blink. "Den, _Mr._ Summers, since others have to live 'round **you**... what did y'do before Xavier found you?"

Scott's jaw stiffened. "Do you really want to know? I slept in a railway car, ate cold Beefaroni straight from the can, three meals a day, and blew up safes for a little hood called Diamond Jack. Who had this little knack for tripping me when I moved around blindfolded, just to remind me what a helpless little brat I was." Scott swallowed back the bile, aware that his voice was turning into a growl. "Jean knows and Bobby knows and Warren knows and it's filed in my records for anyone to see. I'm not too proud of that, but I don't need to have it pulled out of me with a wrench, unlike some people around this table."

Psylocke looked at him with a newly gained awareness; Gambit, with his greatest surprise, nodded quietly and stood up.

_He knew that... he fuckin' **knew** it, that's why he asked_! Scott flared. "Sit down, buster. I don't remember giving you permission to leave."

"And I don' remember askin' for it, Red Eye." Gambit turned smoothly and strode off the War Room, the doors cycling after him with a low hiss.

* * *

_Next: Of buddies, lighters, and beers._


	6. 05 Shifting

**Disclaimer:** Characters: Marvel's. $: 0. Suing: useless.  
**Rating:** T. See the first chapter for ratings and stuff.

The Apologist  
Chapter Five -  
Shifting

There was a loud knock on the door and Gambit slapped the saddlebags shut - out of habit, more than else. Apart from Storm, no X-Man could tell a picklock from a moustache curler, so why bother.

"'S open" he grunted.

Cyclops entered the room and stood in front of the bed, taking in the austere arrangement of the room, the open drawers, the saddlebags on the mattress.

"You're packing up," he finally acknowledged. Hard to tell that from the room - it had never looked inhabited in the first place: the walls were blank, the brackets nearly empty. All it needed to look exactly like a highway motel was a Gideons' bible on the bedside table.

The Cajun slammed the drawer shut again and spoke facing the wardrobe.

"Yeah. You happy now? What you be here for, Cyke?"

"My apologies."

Gambit blinked. Scott stood in the middle of the room, arms crossed; he stared at Gambit's Adam apple for a short eternity and then spoke.

"I had forgotten about Jack. Completely, blissfully forgotten, until you asked and I had to relive it all again. Remember how it was. It got the best of me and I... I lashed out at you because I wanted it to stop."

The thief shook his head, recognizing the apology for the lure that it was. He backed off from the subject hastily; more talking would only get him tangled further. Scott Summers, the fowler. Fuck him. "'S okay, Cyke. Didn't mean to upset you. Let's just forget about it, neh?"

But Scott didn't take the hint, or chose not to, and sat on the bed. A gas lighter placed on the bedside table seemed to pick his curiosity; he read the inscription on the battered steel, moving his lips soundlessly: 'IF YOU FIND THIS LIGHTER ON MY DEAD BODY I HOPE IT BRINGS YOU BETTER LUCK THAN MINE'. He pursed his lips for an instant, then he spoke.

"He had me convinced that there was a bounty on my head, that I had no other place to go. I was being kept in the dark - literally. Had my lids taped shut with 3M ninety percent of the time. Hard to figure out things for yourself when you can't even open your eyes, huh?" He opened and lighted the Zippo with a sharp flick of the hand, stared at the naked flame for a while, then ran the ball of his thumb over and through it, slowly, unerringly. There was something sad and intense in the way his taut lips curved at the sides and a mental picture of a young Slim Summers, betrayed, angry and scared, flickered in Gambit's mind for an instant. It looked eerily familiar.

"I felt suicidal. I felt fucking sorry and **guilty** and there was no one I could turn to. Jack would just beat me. Even assuming that I went to the police and didn't get lynched along the way, what would they do? Lock me forever? Put me out of my misery?"

The Cajun realized he was nodding unconsciously and forced himself to rally up. This was too much. This had to _end_. Leave it to Cyke to try and establish a link with an old teenage macho stunt - and get so fucking near to succeeding. He'd had his perfect chance in the War Room; he should have left at once, pulling a Rogue, leaving a shattered window as a gift goodbye. But he had teetered, and now Scott's words were like yards and yards of chains wrapping around him. The faint flame and the dull chant of Scott's recollection were hypnotizing, in a way. Sure he could buy time, stay a little longer. He would find understanding, he would find sympathy... just there, where he was never supposed to get in the first place.

He fought the steely knot forming beneath his collarbone and deliberately turned his back to Scott, resuming the task of picking necessary items. Hell, he didn't have necessary items. He had started all over again so many times, often with nothing more than the shirt he had been born in.

"Gimme dat" he ordered. Cyke complied, with calculated slowness. Gambit fished a battered pack of cigarettes from a saddlebag, lit one with unsteady hands and sucked the smoke until his cheeks caved in.

"Tired o' dese poisons, me. Every other month, . Too bad it be de good guys"

"Remy" Scott said calmly, "you cried wolf yourself first, about what's in your head. It needs to be done and deep down you know it."

"You start with me, Cyke, you'll never be over. Psylocke may be right about Gambit, but she been actin' pretty funny herself lately. Warren's got dem beautiful wings back, but at what price? An' don' get me started on Joseph. It's..." He just shook his head, unable to articulate his feelings.

Cyclops ruffled his hair in frustration. "If we distrusted you as much as you like to think, you'd have been out on your ass a long time ago."

"Really? You don' just like me better where you could keep close watch on me, like y' doin' for Joseph?"

"You're really reaching now, you know. Keep this up and there'll be no need for a probe to tell you're paranoid."

The thief grinned. "And what if she be right, Cyke? Maybe Gambit got a dark heart, gon' be de death of y'all. You gon' carry out my Xavier protocol den?"

The mention of the protocols sent shivers down Scott's spine, but he managed to tell the provocation for what it was.

"Given that Gambit allowed us to find out, maybe he not so dark at heart after all." He even mimicked the Cajun's accent, mentally patting himself on the shoulders for not having fallen for the bait again.

"This thing that Betsy told me about... is it real? Do you **sense** it?"

Gambit stared at his leader's visor and prepared a lie. He had lied to Stormy. He had lied to Rogue. He had lied to every one of them. One more lie wouldn't mean the end of the world. He gave a last circular glance at the room that he had occupied for years. Another place to leave helter-skelter, another dead end.

"_No_" he said.

What came out of his mouth was "_Knots_."

"What?"

_- What?_

"What are knots?"

"White noise... between thoughts..." Gambit went ghastly pale, and stared at Cyclops as if he had never seen a human being before. It was as if he had suddenly discovered he could fly. He felt like he had just been granted life and diagnosed with a terminal illness at the same time. He spoke as fast as he could, so fast his words came out in a blur.

"Have your spooks rake my mind, on three conditions. First, no one's to know. Second, dey don' find what dey're looking for, de slate's clean. I so much as hear dat 'traitor' jabber again, or see a cross glance at me, the fur's gonna fly. Got it?"

Scott's answer came between clenched teeth. "Fair enough. I'll pass that along. What's the third?"

"If dey _do_ find somethin', whatever... **you** deal with it. I don' wan... I am never to know."

"Never to..." Scott's jaw worked soundlessly for a while as he absorbed that information. "How are we supposed to do that?"

"Don' know. Don' care. Leave now. _Leave._" the Cajun panted.

Scott left.

* * *

There was work to be done. Work to be done. 

That was Scott's mantra as he sat on the pier, looking at the grayish expanse of water in front of him. Soon the mangy sun would sink past the bare birches and the boathouse and it would be too cold to sit outside; but right now the temperature was perfect for someone who had spent most of his forgotten childhood in Alaska. The bottle of Evian rocked in his lap, back and forth, in time with the lazy swings of the rocking chair.

His usual routine for strategic thinking - find a sunny spot and bring a full pot - wouldn't work today. One of his recurrent headaches was coming up, and coffee, his favorite brain lubricant, was taboo in these cases. He adjusted his baseball cap so as to shade his accursed eyes as much as he could. The pain was jostling its way to a place right between and above the sockets; soon it would settle down, curled up in a tight aching ball, and remain there for the next couple of days.

He took the blister from his chest pocket, pushed out an Excedrin tablet and washed it down with a gulp of water.

_Ahh_. Placebo.

He still had to call Emma Frost and fix a day for her to come over, and promptly took note of that. It was out of question that the probe had to take place in the Mansion, because Snow Valley had no psi-fixtures. The White Queen had vetoed telepathy-containing devices on the grounds of her academy, and it was anybody's guess whether young, moody, borderline suicidal Starsmore had ever been more than just an alibi.

The MedLab seemed to be the best place, except that the Cajun's dislike of anything surgical approached terror. The last thing they wanted was a panicky Gambit ramming his shields all the way up with Jean trapped inside.

They needed a medic besides backup telepaths. Damn. The number of people involved was increasing by the minute.

The Z'noxx chamber would have been almost as good, but then they would have to keep Joseph off-limits and move most of his stuff and that was bound to draw unwanted attention. Perhaps he could be transferred with an excuse. He scribbled on the notepad, _MAGNETO - Muir?_, and circled the name.

He made a note to ask whether there was a place the Cajun seemed to like particularly. Maybe a familiar setting would make him feel less nervous. What would be better, daytime or nighttime? He groaned.

The probe was unlikely to clear Gambit of all charges, but he had already decided he'd take the thief's defense in case of uncertainty. Other X-Men were keeping close guard on their secrets, and no one had ever questioned their loyalty.

He needed, deserved... acceptance.

At least for that one strange, aborted attempt at male bonding, right after the wedding, when he had offered to give Scott a hand with moving. There had been a few beers and a short, melancholic conversation about their respective youths and marriages. He remembered feeling moderately embarrassed and... guilty, for reasons he couldn't put his finger on. For being happily married? For being Field Leader? But Gambit didn't seem be aiming at either; actually, he didn't seem to aim at _anything_. Which, considering the X-Men's life expectancy, was as good as anything else. The friendliness hadn't progressed beyond that point; still, it was more than what, say, Logan had done in years.

The creaking of the wooden boards didn't surprise him; the gruff, deep voice did. _Talk about the devil..._

"Hiya, Summers. Got a spare chair?"

_Well, **this** is unexpected_, Scott thought, lazily opening his eyes to a garnet red world. Logan was standing in the porch of the boathouse. And with a six pack, no less.

"You should fix that second step, you know" he complained.

"And let you sneak on me?"

The Canadian took the vacant swing chair; Cyclops caught mid-air a beer can tossed in his general direction. It was a deliberately awkward throw, one of the little challenges that the other man would make once in a while. The Professor had explained that testing the fitness of the leader was common among wolves. Scott thought of the thick layer of steel-gray hair that descended along Logan's shoulders and spine, and felt glad that he had passed the trial once more.

The can was a treat: cool, not chilled, against the palm of his hands, a tempting swashing noise from the inside, a distorted reflection of his own face on the screen-printed aluminum. _Hell to pay_, he mused, and snapped off the ring. He almost heard his headache cheer in approval.

Logan cocked his head, trying to decipher Scott's upside down scribble. "Still tryin' to figger out who's wound Maggie's watch backward?"

"Wouldn't you?"

The older man shrugged, making the chair rock gently. "Don't think we'll ever know. A screw-up with life support in the rescue pod, somethin'. He's come down with the rest of Cable's shack, after all. Don't know if you've seen it, but it's a funky place. Not one you'd want to start tinkerin' with in a bind."

"So you don't care."

Another shrug. "Perhaps it's karma at work. He regressed _me_, someone regressed _him_. Know what, I could shake hands with the author..."

"Unless he or she's preparing to pull another one on _us_. So, what's the word?" Scott broke in. Logan was unlikely to show up in his front porch just for the pleasure of sharing a beer - there were better mates for that.

"The word's Gumbo. Are you considerin' takin' steps about him?"

Scott shifted uneasily in the chair. This was going to take time. He decided not to mention the probe - Logan of course would've kept mum, but Scott had a vow to respect, himself.

"What's the matter? Well - besides the obvious, I mean."

"Bishop's spooked big time, and that's sayin' a lot. And now this Betsy thing."

"Short, sweet and to the point, if you please. You know subtle hints don't work with me."

"Okay." Logan pulled away the ring from the can like it had been a live grenade. "I don't wanna bury another Thunderbird, Cyke."

The name caused the sweat to freeze on Scott's back. The short hair on the nape of his neck rose and fell again. Memories of past mistakes came and went.

"Neither do I."

"Then pass the word to leave Gambit the hell alone. I say we keep an eye on him, but that's it."

Scott frowned. "Yesterday we feared you were going to slice him on the spot. Did he use his trick on you, Logan?"

"No. He's been avoidin' me actually. Kid ain't _that_ suicidal. I don't like what he did to Betsy one bit. I also don't like one bit what _she_ did to him."

Scott mentally nodded. Logan had more than his fair share of skeletons in the closets; of all the people on the team, he was the one who would sympathize with the Cajun. _Now Rogue on the other hand..._ "Fair enough to me."

"Only... kid's under a lotta pressure lately. Wouldn't want him to cock up 'cos he needs to prove his worth. Bein' an X-Men is enough."

"Hm hmm. Can I ask a stupid question?"

"Sure, spit."

"How come **I'**ve gotta do this? I don't do these things well. Last time I checked, _you_ were the resident advisor."

"Last time you checked, I wasn't speaking in grunts. Would you take advice from an animal?"

Scott shivered and looked away. Logan sensed his embarrassment and produced a sneery smile.

"Relax, Summers. I haven't been drinkin' from the toilet in two weeks." He sat up. "So, about Gambit... will you do that?"

A sigh escaped Scott's pursed lips. Gambit's words echoed in his head. _Y' start wit' me, Scott, y' never gon' be over._ No, actually, _**you'll** never be over._ As if Gambit had been too panicked to remember he had an accent.

"I'll give it a thought, Logan."

* * *

_Next: Gambit sends his love._


	7. 06 Breaking

**Disclaimer:** Owner: Marvel. Money: none. Suing: useless.  
**Rating:** T. See the first chapter for sumary and stuff.  
**Note**: Well, so much for the weekly updates. I finally realized the confrontation between Remy and Rogue was turning out as nothing but a wangstfest, so I left it out, and had to leave this chapter on hold while I figured out necessary alterations.  
The "Incredible Journey"-style mindprobe follows XM #42 setup.  
Following established fanfic tradition/this/ represents a telepathic communication.

The Apologist  
Chapter Seven -  
Breaking...

Jean stretched her neck and waited for Gambit to give them his go-ahead. The Danger Room was bathed in dim warm light, the temperature was a comfortable 20°C, everything else had been carefully laid out to minimize discomfort - except the probe itself, of course.

_Like local anaesthetic and classical music before an execution_.

She shooed that thought: it was just a probe, for goodness' sake. These had to be Remy's thoughts, not her own; slipped, somehow, beneath her conscious mind. Damn, the man knew how to be sneaky.

Gambit's favorite couch had been placed in the middle of an otherwise empty Danger Room, and it looked conspicuous, out of place, like a shopping trolley amid Route 66: something you usually didn't see out of an MTV video.

"C'n I have a last smoke?"

Emma replied in a mildly annoyed tone; all the lingering was getting on her nerves. "Quit whinging, LeBeau, it doesn't become you. I suppose you're entitled to a cigarette... unless of course the doctor says otherwise."

She looked towards the control room window and the Beast, expecting the reply.

"_Au contraire_, Miss Frost. Given the extraordinary circumstances, Remy, the doctor has chosen not to interfere with your tabagistic habits, **for this time only**" Henry's composed voice spoke over the intercom. "Since we're at it... have you been assuming alcohol during the last six hours?"

The lighter flickered, lightening Gambit's taut features for an instant. Twin red sparkles danced up and down as he nodded.

"Couple shots of Scottish courage" he answered evenly. The words came out highlighted with grayish, acrid whirlwinds. Jean used a dab of TK to shield herself from the smoke, and the powerful Danger Room ventilators went off automatically.

"Okay, that will be a no, considering your legendary resistance to intoxication." Beast went on, as if running a checklist. "Painkillers?"

"_Non_."

"Drugs?"

Gambit lost it. The cigarette went flying and exploded with a _pop _against the Control Room windows.

"**_Beast_**!" he cried out, putting all his indignation in the single word.

"Remy, I need the information for the sake of safety."

"Yeah, sure. Anythin' else? Last meal? Last fuck? Pictures of me at age 5?"

The last one almost made Jean chuckle, but she maintained her composure for Emma. Hank knew it best than to reply. The Cajun needed to vent out his anxiety, and he was an easier target than the ladies; and his skin was thick - and furry - enough to withstand a little verbal aggression. He'd heard worse while patching up Scott.

But Gambit didn't say anything else, just slumped on the couch like a giant cat, eyes hooded.

"Ready when you are."

"And not a minute too soon" Emma remarked.

Gambit adjusted his arm to a more comfortable position, moving so as to casually address a vulgar gesture at her. She gratified him with a hair-raising smile.

Mentally, Jean cursed the Cajun once more for his stubborn demand that Psylocke wouldn't take part to the probing. Okay, maybe the Frost had chosen to side with the angels now, but she was still likely to try and hamper the probe just for the hell of it. And her Phoenix part had a whole host of reasons to dislike her.

She discarded those thoughts and drew a deep, centering breath, concentrating, reaching out for the state of consciousness that would allow her access to the Astral Plane. The Danger Room faded before her eyes, while its occupants started glimmering hazily with the lights of their psychic auras.

Jean located the White Queen, high and cold like a boreal aurora, and duly extended a psi-link towards her. She wondered whether it was her connection to a cosmic avatar that made her see the astral plane that way. Did Emma see people as stars, too?

/Snowflakes, actually. Shall we begin, Jean, darling?/

The sudden remark, shot directly inside her head through the link, had the effect of a firecracker in the eardrums. Jean brushed the Queen's scorn off her mind.

On the astral plane, Gambit was mainly noticeable for his absence: in a place where people used to flare like stars, the Cajun was almost indiscernible from the background. And there he was, in fact; a speckle of obscurity, like a cloud in the midnight sky. _Dark matter_, Jean thought; _something that couldn't become a star. Looks like today we're going to find out why_.

She turned off her telekinesis, motioned into the nebula - and for the first time she tasted Gambit's shields by her own hand, and flinched. She had been in hostile places before, but this was different. Not Magneto's cold steel stronghold, not Madeline's gaping void, not Bastion's absolute nothingness. These were alive; a barrage of flames, of snakes ablaze and hissing and writhing over a tar wall, daring any intruder to come near and taste their fiery bite.

The first impact was like a mouthful of gasoline; an instant later, somebody put a match to it. Jean's brain caught fire from within. She struggled against the sensation, sensed the spike of Emma's cold amusement through her professional grip on the link: the awesome Phoenix, already in trouble.

Jean scowled. _By crook, then. Your funeral, Gambit._

She called the Phoenix to arms, and tasted scarlet flames as the power flowed within her. She ripped the fabric of his shields like tattered curtains; the snakes withered and were consumed in their own fire. The roar of the flames turned to music and the heat transubstantiated into starlight before her might. In another realm, he cried in pain, and the scream crossed the barrier and washed upon her like a giant violet shockwave. Fiery wings furled, she perched on the ruins, waiting for the energy to dissipate before descending further.

/You shouldn't resist, Remy. You're making it worse for no reason/ she warned.

/Ain'... doin'... _nothin'..._/

Phoenix gritted her teeth. /Well, _somebody_ is./

She returned to the task and was in for a nasty surprise. Too fluid to be actually shattered, the shields had made their comeback and were putting up a hell of a fight. They closed in on her, entangling her wings in slag. No use in breaking in by force; they would seal up behind her the moment she'd enter, severing the link that kept her tethered to Emma.

There were times when a multiple personality helped. Jean shed her telekinetic feathers and left the Phoenix standing guard of the breech, sustaining the shields' unceasing assault; one small step and she was floating just below the surface. Her forceful entry had wrought havoc: flashes, shattered memories of ransacked interiors, of rooftops and being breathless flickered loose before her eyes like glass shards in a kaleidoscope. Mortified pride radiated like heat waves from a parking lot in July, and the images trembled in a reddish haze.

/Remy, I'm in. How do you feel?/

Unsurprisingly, the answer came a little weary. /Great. Nothin' better dan t'have another beautiful _femme_ 'side _ma_ head.../ Jean smiled. So his horrific drawl was contrived: no one _thought_ with an accent.

/No hard feelings, Remy. I'll be finished soon./

She wasn't expecting a reply, but the maelstrom slowed down and Gambit actually answered. /Been doin' dat for a livin', red/ he sent back, laboriously. /Poetical... justice... _non?/_

/Are you all right?/

/Sort of itchin'... like Hank's needles. An' pressure... in spades./

/I'm not putting any _pressure_, Remy./

This time it was his turn to snarl. /Well, _somebody_ is./

Jean followed the coordinates Psylocke had provided and found herself into the Heart of Darkness, at the corner between Bourbon and Canal. The buildings impended over bleak streets populated by faceless mannequins. The air was still, scentless, and seemed to suffocate every sound. Betsy was spot on in saying this looked like a haunted place. Remy's memories were tainted with a desperate... longing. _Be_longing. Like an addiction even when you know it's going to kill you, when it's not pleasant anymore, when the fire has burnt itself out and the dying embers barely keep you from freezing. Being banished from his hometown had affected Gambit more than he admitted... or was there something else?

She peered inside one of the windows, expecting more dummies, perhaps crouching under the kitchen table like in the atomic tests. _The nuclear family. Hilarious._

Instead, there was nothing. The windows were black and featureless like dead TV screens, concealing not the life inside but the _lack_ of it. These buildings were condemned; and the decay hadn't claimed them only because the rest of the world was as dead as they were. No seeds would root among the cracks in the sidewalks, no wind would sift the dust or summon rain clouds to wash away the grime.

She looked up. The sky was low and solid like the ceiling of a crib, with a painted moon and stars; and the roads faded into a maze of dead-end alleys, brick walls and mounds of garbage. The sight of them made her head seem to split, for reasons that had nothing to do with urban decay.  
They were _misaligned_; an illusion of perspective. The place was a giant fake, folded onto itself like an Escher painting. What she had taken for a representation of nostalgy was really an organic symptom - the mental equivalent of a cyst. Now, was this contruct meant to keep stuff _in_... or _out_?  
She moved quickly, fending the crowd; the dummies were just eye filler, barely smart enough not to bump into each other.

The first sign of trouble was just around the corner. A figure in a police uniform, as tall as a lamppost: his eyes, large and black as a fly's, flickered unceasingly like disco balls under the jaunty moon, and his mouth... yeecch. Definitely Gambit didn't have a good opinion of cops. The fly-cop was standing at ease in front of a building, squat, square and rough; prefab concrete and thick dark windows, a suburban bank.

_Large enough to have a vault. A safe place for valuable stuff._.

She briefed Emma, cursorily; she had found a hunch and was going down. From now on, there could be some difficulty in communicating. Wasn't this a bit deeper than Gambit had agreed to? No, the extent of the probe had never been specified. She would resurface as soon as she had finished. How was Emma supposed to know if there were any troubles?

Jean cursed inwardly. /Well, you'd be a sad excuse for a telepath if you couldn't spot out for yourself, Queenie./

The telepathic equivalent of a slap was a balm for her nerves.

She walked to the entrance of the building as if she had every reason to be there and was rewarded with an insect-like stare by the guard. She reached out, willing the door to open...

...and nothing happened.  
In horror, she realized the extent of her mistake. Her telekinesis was busy fencing with Gambit's shields; all that was left for her intruding self was sheer strength of will. And although Remy's conscience was supposed to be pinned under the talons of the Phoenix, there was more than enough of him left to block her out.  
She had no longer grasped this, than the sky above mutated to a dark impending slab of grey, like the sun had just drowned. The bug-eyed policeman jolted and made a dash at her. He changed as he ran, his limbs stretching out and his abdomen swelling so much that it ripped the blue fabric, revealing a leathery and wrinkled hide. Two more limbs, folded against his body, unfurled and pierced the ground, keeping him upright as he reared, ready to strike.

He never managed to.

Something silvery and fast swirled at the edge of her visual field; there was a loud _thwump_ and the officer screamed like a damned soul, holding a bleeding face with two arms out of four. Droplets of tawny blood splattered in the damp air.

_Thwump_.

_Crack!_

The grip on her leg loosened and she could turn enough to see the familiar staff coming down again onto the lying creature, and freeze in surprise.

_Him? In **here**? This can't be happening..._

* * *

_Next: Things that go bump in the mind._


	8. 07 And entering

**Disclaimer**: Owner: Marvel. Money: none. Suing: useless.  
**Rating**: R.See the first chapter for summary and stuff.  
**Notes**: It took more than I expected to write this chapter, and I still don't like it, but it wasn't fair to leave you hanging, especially since next installments are nearly ready.

The Apologist  
Chapter Seven -  
...and entering

_Gambit? In **here**? This can't be happening_!

But he was, closer, more real than ever, his proximity overwhelming, so that Jean had actually to step down and shield herself from his emotions. Rage and frustration and danger and doom all rolled into a dangerous spike, part of which was pointed at her like a knife.

/Jean?.../ the White Queen muttered.

/Busy now, Emma. Calm down, Remy. Please./

The onslaught lulled, the cop reverted to his quasi-human form, whimpering and howling, curling up in an attempt to exclude the ugly, hurting world outside. The scorching tide of rage retreated, leaving a shallow satisfaction behind, and Jean found balance again.

/Jean? Is everything all right?/

/Peachy, Emma. Just plain peachy. How's Remy?/

"Fuckin' pissed."

Having mind-Gambit replying himself made the stone inside Jean's chest even colder and heavier. She focused her attention on her extraordinary savior. For some reasons, she couldn't see him - however she turned around, he was always behind her.

_Is this what Psylocke meant when she said "he kicked me out"? This man's been needing attention for how long and we never realized that_...

This was bad. No one ought to have a representation of their own persona in their mind - unless they had serious issues with self-perception.  
_Multiple personality_?

She spoke, not to the mind-Gambit - an obvious figment of imagination, like everything else around - but to to the mind that was hosting them both.  
/Gambit, I have reached... a crucial point. Can you see where I'm standing?/  
/_Non_. All dat Gambit can see is dat great flamin' bird of yours./ He broadcasted an image, a painting: Rubens' _Prometeus_. A titan chained to a mountain, with a giant eagle eating out his liver. Jean frowned.

/He had _trespassed_. He had stolen the fire./

/_Oui_. An' men would still be stumblin' in de dark if not for his crime./

/So you... you don't know what happened?/

No answer. Instead, the mind-Gambit spoke from behind her back. "Oui, you got y'self in trouble, Remy, he helps"

_Jesus Christ... Okay_. /Listen, Gambit, I'm... moving deeper. It means that you won't be able to sense me. Emma's still aware and linked to me, so, if anything funny happens, she'll warn me. All right?/

The landscape around her trembled in apprehension. The reply was almost a plea. /You'll be de death of me. Just finish. Finish and leave.../

/I can't now. I'm reaching out, I'm _understanding_.../ she explained, entering the building. It was as shoddy inside as it had been outside; more mannequins stood behind counters. /I know this is important to you, but whatever it is, I have promised.../

"...you wouldn' betray Gambit."

The Cajun had stopped talking, but she almost heard a sigh. There was a staircase to her right, leading down to an unmarked door, and she knew she had struck gold.  
The door had been locked at some point, but someone had taken care of it. The handle hung loose and turned freely when she grabbed it; she stepped inside. A cold breeze froze the sweat on the nape of her neck and made her shiver, and the vault went instantly dark as the door slammed shut behind her.

_Holy_... she muttered to herself as her eyes adjusted to the dimness.  
If mindscapes could be put on canvas and framed, Gambit would've made a fortune as a painter. There was a vault, but not of the kind commonly associated to banks; the floor and walls had been carved into stone, polished to a sheen with constant rambling. The panorama in front of her was the dream of a drunken Dali, only that the thief had chosen secrecy, instead of transience, as the _leitmotiv_ of his imagination.  
Secrecy at the cost of isolation. A heart wrapped in steel bands was suspended in a wren cage hanging from the ceiling. It was bleeding slowly, every drop a raw garnet, and the soil beneath was littered with scarlet gems.  
Secrecy at the price of dumbness. From its place on the front wall, a mask was staring at her with a blind gaze. The eyes were twin keyholes; a golden padlock was pinching its lips.

Some unusual pests were running all over the place and attempted to climb her, screeching and yelping like newborn weasels. They crept and felt all over the place, prying every crevice with their eyeless crowbar-shaped heads, obsessive, relentless; they slithered and twisted and pried, and their sight was giving Jean motion sickness. A few climbed her uniform, trying to put thir paws in her ears and mouth. As she grabbed the most stubborn pair and sent them flying across the vault, they scratched her hands with the jagged keys they had for claws.

A small silver statue lying on the floor caught her attention, and she picked it up, wiping it from the dirt. It depicted a young Pan, breaking the pipes of his fife against a hairy shin in a fit of rage, or desperation. The making was exquisite, painstakingly detailed up to the tears in the young fawn's eyes, but the metal was dark, tainted from the oxidation.

The walls were a gruyere of alcoves, each containing a coffer, locked and wrapped in chains for further safety; but coins and medals and gems were scattered on the floor, trampled and muddied like rubbish. She took out a chest, which was humming furiously like an entire beehive, and shook it. A grey wisp of _ash_...? poured from the keyhole and formed a grim cloud that seemed to hang around and follow her for a while.

The vault changed as she ventured further. It had a more rational appearance now, but still unreal and somehow obsolete. She felt like the heroin of a steampunk novel and she wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Hyde or Frankenstein's creature would appear suddenly from one of the side galleries. Some sort of railing ran along the floor and the ceiling was busy with hooks, chains and shieves. In all, it looked like a backstage, abandoned after the last recital yet still waiting for a memorable _coupe de théâtre_.

/Remy... what is this supposed to be?/

No answer. Go figure.

Another step, and she found herself drowned in light. All the psychic radiance that Gambit was supposed to give off was concentrated here, folded unto itself in a furnace of blinding starlight.

There was no empty space, and she had to struggle against her own perception, rearranging the data in order to obtain an object she could examine. The place was organic: its very walls pulsating at a frantic pace, it looked alive, aware. She studied the palpitating wall and it stared back at her from a thousand artificial eyes, suspicious, hostile. Random fragments from a telepathy lesson drifted through her mind.

_The observer's presence affects the experiment, Jean. A foreign mind will always react to your intrusion, no matter how subtle or unexpected. It is very important that you remain unbiased, or your own presumption will impart itself onto your perceptions._

_It sounds like that 'It' monster, Professor._

_More like the 'Id' monster. Remember: telepathy does not prevent us from seeing only what we want to see_.

Center stage was taken by a blurred structure, shaped weirdly, like a crab or a scorpion. Severed connections hung loose like leftover festoons from a past Halloween. Large chunks had been ripped away, some even embedded into the surrounding machinery, or lay loose in decay. The dim light changed rhythmically from green to mauve to red and green again, and a gargling sound went with the to and fro of a mutilated diaphragm.  
A crazed idea caught hold of Jean's mind: that in the tub she would find Madeline in he Goblin Queen attire, and they would have to fight... but that was ridiculous. What would she have to do with Gambit?  
However, she neared the lobster tub with caution and the sight hit her like something physical.

Lying in a few inches of a murky fluid, mauled beyond recognition, there was a body. It wasn't Madeline's, and it wasn't going to put up a fight, either. His whole face had been ripped off, exposing the shiny intricacies of the tissues underneath, and the bare brain peered from underneath a shattered skull. The chest had been likewise smashed and emptied.  
With a shiver, Jean realized that the man was alive. Hosing from the machine was inserted directly into his vessels, coolant and fuel made for blood and lymph.  
He was aware, as well. The shapeless head turned to her direction, out of habit probably, since he couldn't see and his ears, even had they been undamaged, were filled with the sludge he was lying in. The smashed mouth opened and moved, forming a wordless concept right inside her mind.

She grasped for a metaphor, for a term of comparison, something she could translate this into. The harsh voice of someone she ought to recognize barked a single word that she did not understand. Another voice, cold and gravelly and equally familiar, quoted: "Would that I be bound in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams."  
It was _wrong_, and it was _unavoidable,_ and it was _painful,_ and it was _effective_. She tasted bittersweet gunmetal, felt the heaviness of the butt in her hands, the square contours of the muzzle against her tongue, and she saw that it was good, and pulled the trigger. She stared at the chemo bottle, at the IV line and the needle into her forearms, the cherry red cocktail dripping slowly into her bloodstream, the paradox of a poison for healing, her veins burning black, her stomach a convulsing furnace. A newborn baby took its first breath and screamed its existence as she held it into her arms, a catalogue of deformities, dripping wet, with cleft lip, cleft palate, a splayed froglike face and seven fingers on each...

And yes, it was hopeless, beyond folly, and yes, it was the truth beneath all the veneers, and no, there was nothing that could be done about it, and suddenly it was just too much to handle...

_More. Enough. Please. I need to know. I don't want to know. I..._

A compassionate hand shut her eyes. "_Ça suffit, Jean_."

She wrestled herself free. /You have to let me do this, Remy!/ she cried, aware even as he spoke that she was talking to the wrong Gambit. /I have to _understand_.../

"_Suffit_... "

/...Jean?/

This was not Remy. This was the White Queen.

/What?/

/Pull out ASAP, Jean./

/I'm reaching, Emma/ she sent back. /I just need another minute.../

/Gambit's having a seizure. Bad./

_Shit_.

She left the vault, rushed throught the tunnel, then the street and the forged Big Easy. The sky was the color of a bruise and heavy anvil-shaped clouds were laying siege to the horizon, advancing on tendrils of lightning.  
The fake houses trembled; the mannequins were running in all directions, like crazed ants; only mind-Gambit, unfazed by the impending storm, was strolling down Canal Street in that World Showcase version of New Orleans. As Jean took off to rejoin the Phoenix, she saw him jump onto a fire ladder and disappear out of sight.

* * *

_Next: Talking heads._


	9. 08 Finding

**Disclaimer:** Owner: Marvel. Money: none. Suing: useless.  
**Rating: **M. See the first chapter for summary and stuff.  
**Notes:** Yay! Another chapter packed with fast-paced action! ducks to avoid flying produce

The Apologist  
Chapter Eight -  
Finding

Jean opened her eyes with a start and was greeted by the White Queen's unreadable scowl. Her nails had dug quick-deep crescents in the palm of her hands, and her whole brain was pounding like someone had been driving nails into her forehead.  
Suddenly, Emma let go of her façade and started kneading her temples, eyes squeezed and face in a frown; droplets of sweat glistened on her upper lips and she was breathing open-mouthed, as if trying not to be sick.  
Beast had leapt out of the Control Room and was cushioning Gambit's head with both paws to keep it from hitting the floor too hard; there was little else that could be done. The twitching of the long limbs under the crouching figure reminded Jean of a documentary about lions. There was a sound like greenwood creaking: Gambit's own teeth, gritting - and her own, clenched in sympathy.

"_Henri_? What happened?"

The twitching slowed and ended - apparently the worst part was over - and the doctor raised his head to look at her, baring his fangs in a nervous smile. "I hoped _you_ would tell me," he said. "Emma lost contact with you for a while, and he started convulsing."

"Emma?"

The White Queen interrupted her ministrations like she had been caught involved in rude acts in public.

"Jean, honey, _you_ were the one down there" she replied.

Jean bit back her remark: this was Emma's way of telling the truth, but the truth nonetheless. She was a bitch; not a _ruthles_s bitch.

"I was too deep to catch... this"

Hank pushed a button on the Danger Room remote and an exercise droid appeared hauling a hospital stretcher.  
"Help me put him on it" he ordered, forgoing his usually flourished directions. Brushing the headache aside, Jean used her telekinesis to lift Gambit's unconscious body - it was easier than a physical hoist and better for him, too. She followed Hank to the MedLab, with the stretcher tagging along like a cheap trick from a magician show. Emma reached them shortly after.

Henry wired Gambit to one of the intensive care units and checked his vital signs. All equipment, Jean noticed, seemed to have been switched on several hours in advance - and there were three IC units ready; Hank had prepared everything for a worst-case scenario. He lifted a hooded eyelid with a massive finger, revealing the thief's twilight eyes. The pupils seemed to shrink to the size of pinholes under the MedLab's powerful lamps and the Beast's vast shoulders dropped in relief. Equipment started to click and beep as the first routine tests were completed.  
"All right, pulse fast but steady, blood pressure 170/80 and descending, brainwaves pattern normalizing" the doctor announced with a loud sigh. "Our cajoling Cajun is going to be all right... although he managed to give us a hell of a scare."

Gambit had bitten himself during the fit and a reddish froth marred his lips: the only trace of color on a ghastly pale face. Beast donned latex gloves and cleansed the smear, dropping the tissue in the incinerator bin.

"I should have thought of it" he admitted. "Truth is, what with his renowned shields and all, I thought you would be the one..."

Emma cut him short. "Did you find out what you were looking for?"

The usual _ennui_ - but not the scorn - had disappeared from her voice, leaving a genuine curiosity tinted with suspicion. She had been hauled there all the way from Snow Valley to help put an X-Man out of order... there had to be a good reason for it. There had _bette_r be.

"Maybe. Or maybe I just found more questions."

Gambit finally inhaled deeply and gave a long moan, then he spoke, with a slumbering, dizzy voice. Instinctively, they all gathered closer to hear.  
The words were so faint and slurred it took a while for them to understand that he was swearing. Emma burst out laughing, and left. Hank made a show of appearing completely engrossed in checking the instruments, but his spine seemed to unclench a few degrees, and in the end he went to crouch on the nearest bed; Jean took a chair. For a few minutes they stood by his bedside, exchanging embarrassed looks, while he conjured up blood-curdling curses in four languages without ever repeating himself.

"Is this normal or...?"

"I'm totally at a loss. I was unaware that humanity had conceived _this_ many variations on coprolaly."

After a while, the stream of swearing dried up to a rill, the voice became a whisper, and the breathing went heavy and paced.

"He's falling asleep" Beast whispered. "I think he will be his old self by the morning, but I'll be right here keeping watch, just in case."

"No, you won't, Hank. Go to sleep - I am staying."

"You are staying indeed, Jean." Hank pointed at the back end of the MedLab. "There's a bed down there with your name on."

"I'm fine." Big fat lie, and he saw right through it; she was running on empty and fatigue would strike the moment she would stop. "And Emma Frost's waiting for the debriefing."

"That can wait until tomorrow."

Jean massaged her head, kneading the spot on the right temple where the mother queen of all migraines was gathering strenght for a massive attack. "Hank, I need to talk to him about what I've seen, and need to press on before he can come up with a put-on story. If we go by the book, we damn well lose him."

Hank was determined to hold his ground and straightened up with arm crossed. "I can't let you do that, I'm afraid."

"You'll damn better let me, Hank. You have no idea of what's in there. _I_ still have no idea..."

He sighed and nodded towards the lying figure. "Have you considered that he might know _this _would happen?"

Jean felt a shiver crawl up her spine. She hadn't thought of it. She hadn't _wanted_ to think of it... but now the thought was there in all its unpleasant actuality. Yes, words had come from Logan via Scott that stupid desperate men do stupid desperate things, but...

"...I can't believe he'd come to this."

"Jean, self-loathing is not uncommon among mutants. Even among the X-Men. You'd be amazed at knowing how many antidepressants I have to prescribe in here..." He paused, bringing a hand to his temple. "That tingling feeling at the base of my cranium has better not be you prying, Jean."

"Me? I'd _never_. When was the last time you checked for fleas?"

Beast ignored that. "I don't really know whether he was aware of the possibility - although I'd guess he was - but now I can't afford the risk of anyone tripping over his suicidal tendencies. Look at the White Queen. She's doing a good job at looking fine now, but I can tell a backlash when I see one. And you took the brunt of it. Do you think I _appreciate_ the conversation of drooling vegetables? That I _enjoy_ changing piss-bags?" he concluded waving a giant clawed finger under her nose.  
"And I think he has slipped past your defenses as well, _Phoenix_."

"What?"

"What's the first thing you said when you awoke?"

She struggled to remember. Yeah, the Danger Room... the White Queen...  
"Your name. I called you."

"You called me _Henri_, Jean. Is it normal that for a telepath to pick up speech patterns from your patient's mind?"

* * *

"Okay, since the damage's been done, we might as well talk about it." Emma put the cigarette holder on the table right as she was sitting down and the amateur shrink inside Hank suppressed a smile. Some people just couldn't help it. It might be a purse, a cell phone, a Swiss knife - but the message was always the same. Territorial dejections; my place, don't cross. However, when a platinum lighter appeared almost magically in Emma's hand, he drew the line and cleared his throat. "I feel compelled to remind you that smoking is disallowed on the premises..."

The lighter flickered and the acrid smell of burnt tobacco stung Henry's sensitive nose. Twice in a day, he considered. Well, he would take a constitutional walk in the woods that evening... and hope that Wolverine wasn't around with his pestilential cigars.

"So, where were we?" the White Queen asked.

"We hadn't started talking yet."

"Well. I'll say, Jeannie, if I'd had any idea, I wouldn't have agreed to this. What's the bloody point in the first place?"

Jean gritted her teeth almost imperceptibly. She was tired, frustrated, aching and only looked forward to seeing Emma out of the Mansion. No matter that the White Queen was batting for their team now, she still had no right to go holier-than-thou on them, not after what she had done in her better days.

"Shall we quit dancing around the ethical issue? Remy _agreed_ to all this."

"Did he have any other opportunities, other than taking the probe or hitting the road? Jeez, and I thought the X-Men were the good guys."

She looked at them, first one, then the other. Hank, not the one for will contests, literally shrunk under her glare.

"You weren't there, so you couldn't know. Remy has admittedly tinkered with Betsy's mind..."

"...In defense of his private thoughts. You've done worse, Jean, remember?" God, wasn't she good at making them all feel lower than shit. Patiently, slowly, marking her words with a tap on the table, Jean explained again:

"That was the _least_ of our concerns, Emma. But. He's been displaying unprecedented _abilities_. He's been _reticent_ about them. He's attacked a _teammate_. And he's carefully _covered_ his _tracks_. The words _malicious intent_ spring to mind."

"Remy may not have been totally aware when he acted, and perhaps he thought it best to sweep the accident under the proverbial carpet, but that is hardly an excuse not to investigate. There is a horde of possible explanations, from evil twin to mind control" Hank offered.

"I get the point" the White Queen conceded. "What did you find out?"

"More than I was looking for." Jean linked to them both and broadcasted the images she had picked up. "At first, Psylocke's description made me think of a suppressed memory, but the matter's more complicated."

"As in...?"

"Well, at first I was thrown off by this... encasing thing. There is a distinct hiatus between the construct and the rest of his mindscape..."

She stopped; Emma was staring, transfixed, at the imagery from the vault and not paying attention anymore. Then she saw the last chamber and her mouth fell open. "Oh..." she muttered, for once at a loss for words.

"I know. I should've pulled out after I saw it, but he was still coping."

"In hindsight, not one of your best decisions," Hank said.

"Jean, this is the ugliest, biggest, fuckiest psychic scar ever. No wonder he mentioned 'knots'. I wonder how he can even _think_ around that thing..."

"Possibly because even if he can't access those memories consciously, his other persona has a way of letting him in on them." Her thoughts went to the smashed handle. That had to mean something...

"Multiple personality?" Hank broke in. "That doesn't seem the..."

"No, not quite. It's like... Gambit went to great lengths to get rid of his past. Not only he suppressed his worst memories, he's also spending a lot of energy to keep them in check, both consciously and subconsciously. Only, he seems to be having second thoughts about it. This would explain the guardians... and why one helped me against the other."

"So it's like the portrait of Dorian Gray, only in his own mind...?" Emma scoffed.

"Hmm. Then what is your hypothesis about the scar? Gambit's power doesn't seem to work this way..."

"No, I don't think it's self-inflicted either."

"Perhaps if we could take a look at what he did to Psylocke?"

"Emma, I _said_ it's not the same thing. If you want an excuse to rummage in to Betsy's mind, you'll have to try harder than this."

"Ladies, break. We all agree it looks bad" Hank broke out. "Being not the ultimate authority in matter of telepathy, I need to know from you which order of magnitude are we discussing here. What may have left such an aftermath?"

"Death" they answered immediately, in unison.

"Or something so akin that the difference doesn't matter" Jean added.

Hank's tranquil blue eyes focused on her briefly - she looked so intent, almost transfigured, lost in distant memories and lives. Someone else's lives, and demises - how many times had she experienced death by proxy?

They were still linked and for a split second they shared thought processes. _Akin_... She caught his wide gaze in the same moment as the idea flashed before his eyes.  
So simple, so immediate.

"Rogue" he said. "It all started after he fell into a coma. Could this be a consequence?"

Before he'd even started saying the word, Emma had already _tsked_ the idea. " What you would see with Rogue is a large chunk of the mindscape pulled out, not a bauty farm for zombies. Are there any signs of _that_?"

"Care to explain how in Hell you know about this, Emma?"

"You'd like me to, wouldn't you?"

"Ladies, ladies, _please_. " Beast interjected. "Anyone trying to resist the absorption are more likely to have their memory damaged. Rogue's had contact with almost everybody on the team and Carol Danvers is at one extreme, Remy at the very opposite. Consequences notwithstanding, he _urged_ for that kiss."

"Then did you consider he might actually want to be... _tested_ somehow?" Emma offered. "All things considered, it looks like you were talked into that."

"No" Beast replied with a shiver. "There are easier ways to achieve that, and less likely to result in permanent damage. If that's what he was aiming at, he should be removed from active service."

* * *

Scott descended the stairs slowly, swaying heavily with every step. Oh, how he hated to do this. But Jean had been adamant about it and she was right. He had been the one who had made the deal with Gambit and he would be the one breaking out the news to the rest of the team. That is, telling them an outright lie. And, as she had pointed out, it was nothing he hadn't done before.

He entered the dining hall, already full with soup smoke and chatter, and went to the roster affixed to the far wall.

It had been Hank's idea: all the X-Men had their own nametag, with the name etched in capitals. The colors and fonts were all customized and the board was a riot, but it helped the morale, made each one feel special. Without a word, Scott moved Gambit's tag from the "Blue Team" to the "Incapacitated" list.

The noise of conversation, cutlery and crockery stopped immediately as their collective sight focused on him: curious, concerned eyes trying to read into his nonchalant mask. Scott felt like a traitor. On the positive side, Rogue wasn't present. And neither was Joseph.

"Gambit's suffered an accident during an unscheduled Danger Room session" he explained. "He will be unavailable for active duty for a few days."

Silence fell as they absorbed the information. He went to the dining table, helped himself to the hotchpotch and sat down. The first volley of questions reminded him of the Kleinstock brothers¹:

"When_how_did**could**itHAPPENED?"

"Telepathic surge. Out of the blue. Hank's positive that he'll wake up in a matter of hours."

"Was it Betsy?"

"No. Jean." Scott cast a sidelong glance at Logan, thankful that his eyes were concealed. The Canadian had that 'I don't buy it' frown on his face, but only an exercised eye could discern it from his default 'life sucks' frown, and at least, he was keeping his thoughts to himself. Scott relaxed.

"But they're not teamed together" Warren pointed out. There was just a hint of suspicion in his voice, but just enough for Scott to desire the conversation to end.

"I arranged the session. What with Joseph joining and Bobby on leave, I'm thinking of reshuffling the teams."

Ororo stood up.

"I'll go and visit Remy, and see that Hank remembers to eat something" she said as she left, and thankfully the conversation found another subject.

* * *

Emma marched along the corridor and into the entrance hall, not bothering with her usual sensual gait, only interested in putting as many steps as she could between herself and that Phoenix bitch. She made a mental vow to stay away from the Mansion as long as possible - forever if she could. The X-Men had gone round the bend; there was no other explanation.  
This was downright paranoia, a purge of Stalinian proportions. That was intolerable. That was unthinkable. What was in store next, re-education camps? The final solution?

She was so lost in her thoughts that young Guthrie caught her completely by surprise. He was descending the stairs, one hand on the banister, a book in the other. He straightened up as he recognized her, and greeted her coolly in a barely audible mutter.

"'lo, Miss Frost."

She stashed away the frown and the hurry as fast as she could, and by the time she replied "Hello, Samuel", her expression was nothing short of amiable.  
A thought dawned in her mind, and she slowed down and turned, pulling out her best canary-eating smile. "Paige misses you a lot, you know. She speaks of you in the most wonderful terms."

She felt his brain flaring up. Guilt and pride, always a powerful combination. "Er... "

"So, are you coming to Snow Valley anytime soon?"

He straightened so hastily that his spine creaked. "Ah... think Ah'd call her."

Her smile never faded as she inwardly cursed the air blue. _Too blunt. That's okay_, she thought. _Never reinforce defeat. Be cool. Be casual._  
"Is Bobby Drake in?"

Sam's reply was even cooler. "Not at the present moment he isn't, ma'am."

"Oh, well. See you, Sam."

"Goodbye, Miss Frost."

She walked away and out in the brisk afternoon. Her silver limousine was waiting, the Rolls Royce engine already purring in anticipation of the ride at hand; Mr. Bumpkin² took off his beret and opened the door for her.

"Which destination, ma'am?"

"Massachusetts Academy, of course" she answered, fastening her seat belt. The limo left in a soft _crush_ of gravel, and Emma pursed her lips as she watched the large house disappear behind the trees. Whatever the cost, she would take Samuel out of there, spare him from this insanity. Charles was a psychologist before a mindreader - he ought to have seen this coming along for _ages_. Although of course, the Good Professor was too busy becoming insane to bother... Christonachrisler, he had left them to deal with a handful.

It did not make any sense. Why should Gambit attempt a psychic suicide-by-cop in the way it was less likely to succeed?

Unless, of course, his intentions weren't that suicidal after all... Emma leaned back against the leather of the seats, trying to sort things out. Her subconscious must've worked out the facts before her rational mind, because her memories drifted to the serene days of her childhood; before the voices, before the whole mess. The old tales, and the Georgian drawl of Bonnie, the housemaid³, playing Bre'er Rabbit: "Anythin', anythin', but please don't throw me in the briar patch!"

Fucking Cajun. What was he up to?

They had fallen for the oldest trick in the book. And she had followed along.

She considered telling the X-Men, but dismissed that thought. Even so, what would they do? Probably nothing, like most of the times. Or made things worse, like the rest of the times. Just look at the wretch they had turned the Iceman into. At least the little crook had a functioning brain, and an agenda in it, which was more than could be said for most of them. She laughed aloud, hard enough that Mr. B looked at her through the rear-view mirror, puzzled.

"Is everythin' okay, ma'am?"

"Yes. More than okay. Let's just go home. I need to wash this sanctimonious stench off my clothes."

* * *

_Next: And that's how my troubles began._  
--  
¹Of Acolytes fame.  
²Emma's green-skinned, nose-lacking chauffeur. Don't ask me how I remember these things.  
³I don't know whether Emma actually had a Georgian housemaid named Bonnie. If anyone knows about her childhood from the miniseries, please LMK so I can work that in. 


	10. Interlude One Beginning

**Disclaimer:** Owner: Marvel. Money: none. Suing: useless.  
**Rating:** This chapter gets a big fat M.  
**Notes:** The Chapter That, Like, Basically Wrote Itself - although with some jarring POV switches.  
There's another original character who's a plot device on legs. Will I ever learn?  
And I know, Madelyne Pryor's awakening contradicts previously established canon. Then again, so does anything by Terry Kavanagh.

The Apologist  
Interlude One -  
Beginning

It started almost innocently, like an itch under the skin of your hands, and at first you hoped it was the nettles from the abandoned shipyard. Then it got worse, like shingles, like lying on a bed of embers, like a smoldering fire.  
You knew it was all in the mind. It had been like this before, when you were too weak from hunger or fatigue or illness. And now it was the same, only you didn't know how to beat it. You could sleep the whole day out and still feel dog-tired. You could wolf anything and have this unnamed hunger gnawing at you.

It started with the itch and soon there was no way you could stop it. Even retreating to the barren concrete halls of the old steelworks did nothing for it. Fires set off everywhere; cranes collapsed boisterously in the heart of the night, the groan of steel buckling punctuated the undertone of roaring flames. You'd hide in the rusty innards of a truck-sized tilted crucible as the sirens screamed their way to the latest wreckage, lulling you to a restless, dreamless sleep.

After the second time your mattress caught fire, you started soaking your clothes before sleeping, out in the rough, on the concrete. The charge kept them warm through the skin; it seemed a good idea.  
Then came December and the wind blew all night long from the ocean, carrying scent of salt and icy drizzle, and you woke up the morning after with a sore throat and a stubborn cough. Then came the fever and the weakness and the shivers and the heaves, and on top of all this, the itching didn't stop. As you withered out like an uprooted weed, the wildfire inside you wouldn't burn out.

You'd always been an optimist; you chanced that spring would be here before it got any worse, that you wouldn't need to go pleading a _traiteur_. Close, but no cigar, and now it's too late and you're too weak to do something. You're too weak to do anything, even to move out of this alley where you've fallen, crawl out from under this spring downpour. You're hot enough to melt steel and yet your body feels like ice. You're shaking so bad something has to break; every new breath is a surprise.  
It's not been too bad, you tell yourself. You've seen the world. Mostly bad places, but at least lots of them. And it's easier than you had imagined and it won't be long now... you're hallucinating already. A shape that doesn't belong in this world is moving in front of your eyes, dancing in and out of sight.

At first, you thought it was real. Then you realized you'd seen the shape before you sensed the heat. Means it's cold. Cold as this evening, as only this city can get. No human body would ever be so cold.  
You think it has come for your soul? You must be delirious.

The shape moves unevenly under the hammering shower, from dead dog to broken bottle to blown tire, not bothered about sheltering from the rain. You'd be scared, but you know better. It's not real, and even if it was, it has ceased to matter. The world turned meaningless the moment you fell, face forward, into the gutter.  
He kneels beside you. The cape he wears spreads forward over your lying carcass as he leans over and the water stops drumming. Icy hands are all over you, feeling your chest and limbs beneath the soaked clothes with dismissive efficiency.

You've got no wallet. No money, no documents to fill one. You wait for the inevitable knife, squeeze the last card in your hidden hand - if you have to go, he'll come along for the ride.  
A hand feels your burning forehead.

"Can you stand?"

_Stand_. As in, what human beings do - the healthy ones, at least. The word, the concern, strike someplace deep within you, carving a sharp splinter of regret. But you're already drifting on the far side of the pain, it's easier to escape than to come back. To this coldness. This loneliness. You'd want to explain, but it does not matter much. You just shake your head, close your eyes, severe the last link that kept you tied to - nothing anymore.

His hands abandon you. The rain starts to pound again as he straightens up. His tongue makes a small uninvolved noise as he wipes his hands on his clothes.

"Tsk."

It's a small dismissive noise that barely hits your ears, but it sounds like the crack of a whip flogging your back. Vermilion eyes flash open again in anger, in pride, your hands go blindly for the edge of the cape, grabbing, dragging. He does not react, just awaits, mildly surprised but not moved. Despise has succeeded where sympathy has failed. You stagger, rise to your knees, coughing, and painstakingly straighten up and find yourself staring defiantly at him.

The last thing you see are his eyes.  
Piercing eyes. Piercing, blazing **red** eyes.

You finally come to your senses after days of sweat-coated hallucinating, of thirst and aching. He is not far away; he's never been. His hands, his eyes have been on you all this time, keeping a cold, silent watch.  
You blink, stretch under the warm blankets to better relish the smooth sensation of clean cotton grazing your skin.  
He stands up from his chair, feels your forehead. His palm is cool, ungiving, like his voice.

"How do you feel?"

_How_ do you feel? It's a good question. Your vision is blurred and he's just a cold heap of colored spots, gray and blue and fiery red, fluctuating before your eyes. You try to focus, but a dull throbbing starts behind your eyeballs and when you frown your scalp seems to want to rip apart. You sigh. The gargling sound that underlined every breath his gone, and your throat is as dry as cotton wool, but does not explode with painful twitches each time you swallow.

"What" you say, and the sound of your voice surprises you. It's ten years older than you are, it's the noise of a rusty hinge giving way. The single word is uttered as an incomprehensible growl.

"I just offered what help I could" the hazy shape explains, returning to his stool. "Double pneumonia and a severe hypothermia - both of which fully receded, as you already noticed. Your voice box, on the other hand, will take some time to heal completely."

You're still too dizzy, going adrift inside your own body, but something strikes you - no, the absence of something strikes you.

The itching is gone.

"Plus, I was compelled to perform emergency neural surgery on you. You should be able to recognize subtle differences in the way your powers work. I am afraid you will notice an overall downgrading in their effectiveness."

"How..."

"There will be plenty of time to discuss this, later" he breaks off. "Rest."

He strides out of the room and as the door closes behind him you're already dozing off again.

* * *

Essex washes his hands in the basin. He never uses surgical gloves: bacteria, he has discovered, simply find him unpalatable.  
You, on the other side, are not. Your hands and wrists are wrapped in bandages and smell of liniment and the aftertaste of the antibiotics is still lingering in your mouth. You wonder what's it like - gangrene. Losing your deft, slender hands.  
Meanwhile, the woman you brought lies on the surgical table, neither alive nor dead.

Your fingertips are completely insensible, the skin blackened, almost necrotic. What little nervous tissue is left is screaming in protest, like red ants eating your flesh under the bandages. All this just for carrying her dead weight - and you had a protective suit, albeit no gloves. You wonder what she must feel, every day, all over. The bruises under her skin tell an unspeakable story.  
He raises his eyes from the girl and frowns.

"Stop worrying over your precious hands. I _told_ you you'll be fine."

Something's wrong with him. He was pleasantly surprised when you brought her here; now it looks like he's going to bite your head off, like that time you let the Labrador escape - _but please let's not talk about it right now_. He's tense and, for the first time ever, unconfident.

"I _trust_ you with my hands" you bark for all answer, too tired and hurting to be polite. "What's the matter with _her_?"

Essex takes his time before answering. "Her mutation is... disorganized. I have never encountered anything like this before."

"What do you mean, "disorganized"?"

"The readings indicate that the mutation itself is responsible for her condition. The lack of control is predating her current state of shock."

"You mean her own powers put her out?" Sounds disturbingly familiar. "Can you, uh, fix dem?" Your eyes dart for an instant to Essex, but the man is too concentrated to notice the slight lapse into Yat.

"Shut that trap, Remy. You're such a nuisance! I don't have all the answers yet."

You shut that trap and lean over the girl, contemplating her from a few inches away. The cupola fogs under your breath; the heart throbs steadily, tireless, behind a curtain of shiny flesh.  
There was a clock on the mantelpiece in the old French Quarter house, all exposed gear under a glass bell. Suddenly there's just so much your eyes can register. Is that the room spinning, or...

"If you're unable to master your own stomach, could you at least step away from the sterile hood?" Essex suggests harshly. The remark helps you regain control. You focus on him.

"Is she hurting?"

"Not from _my_ doing. What do you think I am, a maniac?"

You raise your bandaged hands in a conciliatory gesture. The girl is lying naked on the steel surgical table, motionless, breathing normally, with no sign of distress. Yet her skin has been cut and folded back like a paper envelope, exposing the intricate patterns of the underlying tissues like an autoptic demonstration. There is no bleeding, no drying. Her exposed flesh shines like the Missouri River at sunset under the merciless light. You wonder how you must've looked a year ago, opened up like a frog on that same table, as Essex worked his black magic on you.

He throws the damp towel in a bin and goes to the sequence analyzer. He has done for years with machinery salvaged from the Celestial ship, adapting them to his needs and jury-rigging the spares, but now that human technology is finally starting to catch up, his laboratory has become a riot more than ever. Alien hardware coexists with three different operative systems, and this particular machine has a data collection system made up of an overclocked 486 with a color TV screen - your masterpiece of hardware bashing. The ports wouldn't get along at all, but you soldered them somehow. And it never had a system crash.  
You were particularly proud of that.

He closes the lid and the machine starts whirring and humming. Now all you need is a way to spend the time. You would've left the lab long ago, but Essex has explicitly told you to stay, just in case. There's fresh coffee in the jug, smelling wonderful as always, but you're not in the mood. You wonder whether he makes especially it for you, and why - for sure he never took a sip. He doesn't drink, he doesn't eat, he barely breathes and not at all times.  
Essex goes to his usual place in front of the main screens and drags a chair out for you, inviting you to sit down with a brief gesture.

"Her powers are not "freaking out", Remy. Actually, neither yours ever did. What you called "freakin' out" was a case of improper training, together with a unique situation of psychic and physical stress that had very few chances of occurring. There was little time left before you burnt yourself out, which caused me to resort to surgery. But I digress." Essex looks away from you as he speaks, as if he was... ashamed of his limitations.

"Remember what I told you about mosaicism? Some of her cells are mutant, some are not. Her neural wiring reflects this situation... distorted connections and misaligned synapses. As a result, she's physiologically unable to cope with her own power, let alone exert control on it." He gives a glance at the naked figure still lying on the table, oblivious to the world, to what has been accomplished on her. "In all these years I have never come across such a condition."

You start to understand. "You're saying there's nothing you can do?"

He nods gravely. " She's beyond my help. The only thing I can do is... take notes and study her case."

The machine stops droning and Essex stands up.

* * *

He had lost his faith long ago and sometimes he regretted it - it had left him without a God to curse. He stared at the results open-mouthed, aware that he looked like an idiot and not giving a damn.  
A reporter sequence.

It was homage... or mockery. A sick joke at the expense of the nameless creature that LeBeau had stumbled upon in the sewage ducts under the city as he attended one of his own clandestine barters.

Every mutant factor started with the same string, then continued in a peculiar way. Celestials used notes as symbols for the DNA triplets, so that proteins were spelled out like music. The factor in the cells of this creature sang out of tune, and it was not until he tried the NCBI GeneBank database, and human notation, that he realized the heinous reason.

Every mutant factor started in the same way: Ala-Phe-Ile-Thr-Lys, or AFILTK. That was a conserved domain, acting as a mooring dock for the transcription enzymes. From there onwards, every sequence diverged, giving birth to the myriad of amazing variation that were the gift of mutantkind. In this case, it read: Ile-Met-Ala-Asp-Glu-Ile-Ther-Phe-Lys-Ala-Thr-Ser... ...IMADEITFLATS...

...IMADEITFLATSCANSBITEMEHASTALAVISTA...

The scalpels' tray flew into the wall, causing LeBeau to jump up like a scalded cat. Essex had created life himself - or had attempted to - and the mindless body in the stasis tank was there to prove it. But it had been a last resort attempt - and a futile one, too.  
This woman, this quasi-mutant was a purposeless exercise in genetic engineering. Her X-factor wasn't even meant to function; it was a mere chance that it had managed to produce an erratic semblance of electrostatic power. Poor planning and _hubris_ on behalf of the researcher had led her to this miserable condition.

His thin mouth curled downward at the corners in a disdainful grimace. Wasting time and resources for the lowly purpose of a bawdy joke... This haughtiness was totally extraneous to him - he was such above terrestrial technology that even parading his results would have been... demeaning. Mankind was not in his league, nor it would be for the next thousand years.

What with dumping the experiment, letting it rot in a gutter, like a spoiled child trashing his own playground with stapled lizards... Whatever the purpose, his rival's approach was too blunt to be ignored; he had to give this mean apprentice a signal, loud and clear, that Nathaniel Essex would not tolerate any amateurish interference within his field.

* * *

You've never seen him like this. His confidence is gone; his proud stance, vanished. When he tells you, it's not just to teach you. He has to share this with someone. With anyone.

"She's artificial."

Sounds like it's bad news. "What do you mean?"

"She's not even mutated. She's been _constructed_. Somebody cloned a normal embryo, and inserted an artificial mutant chromosome. But the extra chromosome was too unstable to be maintained during mitosis and this is the result."

His tone carries a ring of closure. Each word is like a bell tolling. You know where this is heading - you'd rather not to.

"I can't cure her, Remy. I wouldn't _want_ to" he states. "Even if I restored her to a healthy mutant condition, it would be like giving my approval... an incentive for whoever is responsible to persist... to create more of this."

Your eyes narrow. "Not _her_ fault" you observe. You'd like your tone to be sterner, though.

"No. It's not her fault. And yet she'll have to keep on suffering from the random activity of her mutant tissue until the day she dies." Essex replies. He says in a sigh, "What a waste."

You want to hear a hint of pity in those words. You stand by, silent, as he closes her chest, sutures the cuts almost mechanically, like it was a practice, without ever looking at her face once. When he's done, he drops the needle and tweezers on the heap due to the sterilizer, and walks away from the table.

You know what he wants. You always did, even when you least wanted to. To hear the words that people are afraid to say. Like your family and Belle and even the old Bodreaux man - all pleading with everything but words to do what's got to be done, then retreating in front of the enormity of their own desires once the feat had been accomplished.  
The advantage, with Essex, is that he hears those words too, the unspoken ones. He doesn't lie to himself; he wouldn't balk at seeing his requests satisfied.

"I want you to bring her to the same place where you found her. Whoever did this, Remy... their act won't pass without consequences."

Before he walks out of the lab, he stops without turning. The sentence is finally spoken, in the form of a passing mention. He knows you'll understand.

"In case you are wondering, Remy, I cut off the anesthetic supply. She's expected to wake up any minute soon."

There's something about this man that you find reassuring. The decision has been taken, and there is no going back, no repentance.

It would be bliss. If only it wasn't about _this._

You don't want to do this.

What you want doesn't matter a thing.

Your bandaged hands are aching, insensitive, but still strong.

You pray that she won't wake up, and she doesn't.

You think of the tunnels, the damp, cold, dirty tunnels.

You will need a coat.

* * *

The girl was drifting, cradled endlessly by the slow current of saline solution in her glass case. Remy was crouched aside, watching.  
She was beautiful, beautiful in the way a statue, a painting, a dawn would be... and faulty. Essex had told him everything; how he why he couldn't resolve himself to put her out of her defective non-existence - to be reminded that he was not omniscient, not omnipotent.

Such a shame.

But it was good, nevertheless, to admire her elemental beauty, her hair dancing weightlessly in the fluid like bare flame, her serene, soothing expression. He had found himself coming here more and more often, often for hours on end, especially after a recurring dream of charred flesh and empty, lifeless eyes. Essex seldom, if ever, went to this room; it was in here that he was forced to face his limitations, to weigh his vaunted science and find it wanting. The thief just appreciated the quietness, maybe envied the dreamless oblivion of the woman, sleeping, blissfully unaware of the intricacies of the world in which she had been brought.

"Remy." Suddenly Essex was standing beside him, frowning.

"Uh?"

"I _told_ you I don't want you to come here. Staring at a failure won't teach you anything. Now get out."

As Remy stood up to leave, a quicker movement caught the corner of his eye, and his mouth dropped open. The girl was having a fit in her capsule, her serene expression vanished. Her eyes opened wide and she stared at him, without seeing. She squeezed her eyes shut again as if to hold out a violent sight, took a breath underwater and screamed directly into his head...

"SCOTT!"

The glass capsule exploded like a grenade and Remy jumped under a rainfall of green gunk and glass shards, catching her limp body before she hit the ground.

"What have you **done**, LeBeau?" Essex yelled. He looked mad, bewildered.

"Ain't done a _thing_!"

"I can't believe it" Essex said, but he was talking to himself this time.

She opened her mouth as if to speak and choked; Essex pulled her out of his arms and held her head down as she coughed up more of that green sap. Remy observed the scene, wishing that he could do something, wishing that he knew...

"Power and fire and life incarnate... forever..."

"What she saying?" He leaned closer, cocking his ears.

"They're dying" she whispered. "Screaming. On and on and..."

The two men exchanged amazed looks. She slid out of Essex's hold and onto the floor, curling herself into a ball, face buried against her knees.

"I was just hungry. I didn't know... Scott... make it stop... please..."

Essex looked clueless: he stared at the woman with wide eyes, muttering something under his breath. He gestured for Remy to get a clean labcoat from the cabinet and wrapped it around her shoulders, lifting her gently.

"Can you stand?" he asked. Remy suddenly found it hard to swallow.

Her reply sent goosebumps down his spine. Barely a whisper, burdened with all the sorrow in the world.  
"Why am I not dead?"

* * *

_Next: Rogue goes mental. Warren gets some panel space _


	11. Pacifying

**Disclaimer:** Owner: Marvel. Money: none. Suing: useless.  
**Rating:** G. Notes and stuff are in part 1.  
**Note:** Here's Chapter 11 in its entirety. I'm _still _not satisfied with it - I can't write Rogue, and I can't write romance. But the story needs to move on.

The Apologist  
Part 10 - Pacifying

Elizabeth made the last steps to the suite almost running and shut the door as hardly as she could without slamming. She told herself to breathe, forced open her clenched fists through an act of will, and counted to ten.

"You're broadcasting, love."

The voice made her start. The room, bathed only in bluish moonlight, had seemed empty: Warren knew how to become perfectly invisible in the dark. He stepped out of the shadows, with his newly found wings resting half-spread behind his back, like a gargoyle given life.

"Is anything wrong?"

"No, not really. I've just crossed Rogue on the stairway. She can be really unpleasant when she wants to." She shook her head, trying to get rid of the memory. An angry Rogue was something she hadn't experienced since a long, long time.

Perplexed golden eyebrows closed in a frown. "Forgive me, Betsy, I'm afraid I'm totally at a loss here... Rogue's mad at you? How come?"

It was her turn to give him a quizzical look. "They haven't filled you in on the X-gossip yet, isn't it?"

"I wish. I've spent the last four days dealing with the Fiscal Inspection from Hell. They strip'n'searched Worthington Industries like we could sweat cash - there were times when I wished for extra arms so I could hold four telephones at once. The last accountants left my office an hour ago and not a minute too soon. I just took a shower."

He still looked tired indeed. His eyes were reddened, his stance stiff, and his back made soft snapping sounds as he stretched. "I didn't even find the time to call you. Forgive me."

"No, **you** forgive me. It's nice, for once in a while, to be reminded that some of us actually have a life outside this. Helps to put on some perspective."

He grinned. "The X-life is a descent into progressive alienation. When I used to live here, it seemed like there was nothing else in the world other than brawling with the Brotherhood and flirting with Jean. As soon as I'm done with the refurbishment paperwork for the Mansion, I'd like to be out of here, if you don't mind. Anyway - can you tell me what happened?"

"_That_ way?"

"That way is fine."

Betsy closed her eyes, Warren cleared his mind, and memories from her brain flooded his, the events of the previous days all blended in a frantic kaleidoscope; the sudden recollection, the conversation with Scott, Gambit's stubborn hostility.

"And they went ahead and actually probed him?" Warren shook his head, astonished. "Whew. No wonder Rogue was so angry, Betts. She's standing next in line, so to speak."

"Yes, I know that. But it makes little difference, when she shows you her war-face." She shrugged away the thought. "Scott made up something to tell the rest of the team, but the actual story leaked out and now everybody knows... even Joseph."

"Emma Frost" he guessed. "Bitch."

"And now I have to be the Evil Witch of the East. Rogue said I pulled off with worse, and the funniest thing is, it's absolutely true. I shouldn't have squealed on Gambit. Not after the way I discovered what I discovered."

He pulled her forward and into his arms, pressed his forehead against hers. His eyes had been unchanged, and she thanked the powers that be for that. Fair and luminous, they looked like windows on a clear sky. When he spoke, they darkened, as if they were staring at an abyss.

"Betts, this is not a matter of who's been a saint or a sinner. On this principle, _who_ would be allowed in here? I feel for Remy, really - he's been having more than his share of trouble lately. But it was his decision to take the probe. All he needed to do was talking - trusting. He chose not to, gambled his life - for what? Does he think we wouldn't understand? He's been brushing elbows with Magneto for the last month. If _that_ does not drive the point home, then I don't know."

He stood up, lifting her with the same movement, crossing arms behind her shoulder blades. She reciprocated, burying both hands in the soft plumage, ruffling his feathers. Just days before, she would've found only cold, sharp, hurtful blades in there. Yes, Warren was the living proof that redemption was possible.

Dusk colored fingers dug into her smooth hair. It was true, he hadn't had enough time for himself for several days - he hadn't shaved. A stubble like golden dust, that would have been barely visible on human skin, stood out against his blue complexion; it scratched against her neck as Warren stroke his face on hers, leaving a trail of fire. "You look like you could use a moonlight flight. What about we leave this earth for a while, forget its petty miseries, and have the night for ourselves?" A strong, light hand pushed her back and she let herself fall, only to be caught in a delicate hold with the other arm. Warren held her like a newlywed bride, pushed the window pane open with a swing of his feathered limbs, and jumped on the sill. It looked like a poster from an horror B-movie, the winged monster lumbering with the beauty in his arms.

"May I skip the seatbelts and safety jackets demonstration?"

She chuckled. "You may."

He dove, wings closed, like a suicide jumper and the earth surged to meet them, swooped under her sight at a fearful pace. At the very last minute, Warren spread his wings, and gave a single powerful push that carried them both above the trees and into the clear evening.

* * *

She did her best not to slam the door open, but the handle bent in her grip none the less. Beast was hanging upside down from the ceiling, engrossed in a book, and nearly fell when he saw her storm inside his_sancta sanctorum _regardless of the red warning light outside that meant NO ADMITTANCE. 

"Ah… Rogue. What a pleasant surprise."

And yet Hank was not a bit surprised; actually, he had been steeling himself for this for quite a while. Sighing inwardly, he glanced at the incubator clock (still forty minutes to go), dog-eared_The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner_, swung down from his perch, and landed in front of her with a triple somersault and a shy grin.  
"Do you fancy a coffee?" he asked. Then, as he received no reply, "Remind me to lend you this book sometime. It makes for a refreshing insight at..."

"Do you really think Ah'm here for the small talkin', Beast?"

He flinched at that opening barrage: okay, this was going to stink. Desperate for a way to look busy, he removed his glasses and started wiping them with a fold of his labcoat.

"All right. I'll admit I have been expecting your visit."

"'Course ya did. You're a _doctuh_, Hank, how could ya let them _do_ that?"

"Rogue, everything had been arranged already. I was _only_ asked to provide medical assistence in case anything unexpected happened. I could have refused on an ethical principle, but in hindsight I'm glad I didn't. The outcome could have been much worse otherwise."

"So you came out all smellin' of roses, 'cos you just stood there and _watched_? Gambit had his head cracked open, but it's okay, 'cos _things could've gone much worse? _So who's gonna be next? Joseph? Warren?"

Hank raised a finger in a mute appeal, but the question was just rhetoric and she pressed on before he could open his mouth.

"But how stupid of me! You need the heavy cannons in the team, right? And you First Five are untouchable of course. But the swamp rat's got to bite the bullet or make tracks. _Who_ needs such a stupid powah anyway?"

Hank gritted his teeth with such force that they let out an audible creak. "It's never been a matter of powers, Rogue" he replied through clenched jaws. "And it's never been a matter of close watch either."

"Ya know, Ah could almost believe it if you just looked me in the eyes when ya say it" she rebuked.

Hank stiffened. "Rogue..."

"Don't "Rogue" me, Beast. Ah know you've tried everythin'. But sometimes there's this little voice inside mah head, saying you're scared that Ah may walk out on you if Ah evah get control."

That was too much even for Hank's guilt complex. "If you think so little of us, feel free to leave at your pleasure," he snarled. "We've got Genoshan collars, power suppressors, field inductors, and all that sort of garbage. You know what they are? _Crutches_. Try them once, and you'll never be able to do without. We've done our damned best to help you to help yourself. But if you'd rather dwell in self-pity and blame the people around you for your misery, then I won't waste any more time that could be better spent in helping people who appreciate the attention!"

It took him a split second to realize what he had said. He slapped his mouth as if he could push those last words back in, but the damage wouldn't be undone.

"Rogue, I'm sorry. That was… awkward of me. I've been on edge lately. I didn't mean to - I realize now that doesn't describe my actual feelings."

"Ah, but it describes mine" Rogue rebuked, and she looked so intent that Hank actually jolted. She waved her hands, unable to convey her thoughts with words alone.  
"It feels too good. It feels grand. Ah'd never want it to end. You are everyone, you do everything. Mystique can look like someone else, but inside she'll always be her nasty batshit crazy self. Ah can _be_someone else. If Ah got control, Ah'd never stop. If only Ah could get away with it."

Hank took a step back, with a hard expression on his face. "I don't know. In my humble opinion, it would be a shallow, miserable existence."

"That's a rich one, comin' from ya." She gestured at the MedLab. "Locked down heah like you're serving a life sentence."  
That one came so close to home that Hank's ears folded back and even Rogue, never the diplomat, felt the need to water down some of its harshness:  
"On second thought, thanks for stopping Jean."

"Just my duty" he replied, attempting a conciliatory smile. "By the way, you know what she would find, don't you?"

"Actually, no. I don't have the slightest idea.

* * *

Gambit woke up dizzily to the icy white light and taste of chemicals, blinking. _Not the MedLab again_, he thought. _Merde_. 

"Howdy, swamp rat."

The voice was close and warm. He smiled slowly, realizing that his bed was slightly sinking to one side under the weight of the visitor, and dared open his eyes. "Mornin', _chére_... Since how long?"

"Two days" she answered. "Hank warned me when he thought you were goin' to wake up."

"Good man."

She frowned slightly at that comment, but stood up from the bed without a word and he exited the sheets carefully, checking... okay, he was dressed. Wearing those awful stinkbug green pajamas that were becoming a sort of second uniform, but dressed nonetheless. Right foot first, carefully, he stood up, amazed at the swarm of black fleas that gathered in front of his eyes. Better than the last time, tho.

"Might as well get a season ticket, _n'est pas_?"

"What happened, Remy? What did they do to ya?"

He wandered towards the row of closets lining one of the walls. "You don' happen t'have brought clothes, _perchance_?"

"You ain't goin' to tell me, right?"

"_Cherie_, you know how I hate dis place. De sooner I get prop'ly dressed, de sooner we get outta here."

Where there would be no answer at all, and she knew that. "You want us to _know_, but you won't _tell_ us. Is that it?"

"Fell out with a resident teep. Period." The answer was harsher than he wanted, but he was stiff and sore and not in the mood for serious discussions. Definitely Rogue didn't have a mutant sense of timing, except maybe in reverse. He started rummaging the closets, only to find ironed labcoats, boxes of examination gloves and... either Hank's secret attempt to obtain hallucinogens from bread mold, or his forgotten stash of Twinkies.

Rogue was talking to him again, but he had lost the first part.

"...you must be aftah somethin'. All this time, pushin' for me to _touch_ ya... an' now you've let _Jean_ inside your head..."

Oh, so that's what she was all worked up about? That Jean might find about _her_ in his mind? A surge of anger made his lips twitch. Being with her called for a lot of second guessing, for watching every single word and move, and on top of everything else it was getting harder and harder to do.

"But then what do you want? You want us to _kill_ ya? Is that it?" She blinked twice, bit her lips and Gambit finally realized she was simply, truly upset. Last week mustn't have been easy on her, either.

He shook his head slowly. "Dat's why I had t' allow dem, _chère_. If dey could force me – an' dey _could_ – den none can tell dem to stuff it."

That did only make things worse. She looked on the verge of tears. "You shouldn't have, Remy. It ain't worth it, it just…"

He wasn't in the mood for cuddling, but she was shaken and badly in need of some reassurance, so he took a step towards her, arms outstretched.

"_Oui_, mebbe. But it's over. Hug me, _chère_?"

As always, even though she was wearing gloves, embracing was a slow, careful process, but in the end they were standing in the middle of the room, clasped into each other's arms, her face resting against his shoulder, her hair a silky cushion under his scratchy stubble. Absently, he twirled a lock between his fingers.

"Ah, the things we would have done" he said, real regret in his voice, and heard her sigh against his tousled mane. No matter how strong Rogue's feelings or needs, a deep-seated distrust always prevailed, choking every motion, turning every possible path into the one not taken. A condition he knew damn well and she should have known by now, should have _understood_... And Gambit would have loved more than everything to find out the roots of her suspicion so he could charge and blast them out of this world.

They stood like that until her concern overcame , and she broke contact, releasing him with a heavy sigh and leaving him free to continue his search.  
Ah, finally. Jeans and a sweater. He kicked away the heinous foam slippers, turned again towards Rogue, holding the ripped Levi's with both hands.

"Would you mind turnin', _chére_?"

* * *

_Next: Jean goes for a walk._


	12. 10 Foreboding

**Disclaimer:** Characters: Marvel's. $: 0. Suing: useless.  
**Rating:** G. See the first chapter for summary and stuff.  
**Note: **Requires knowledge of the facts in Uncanny X-Men #212 and X-Factor #7. Why, you know, X-Factor... Oh, well, never mind. A/Ns are at the bottom.  
**Warning: I have completed Chapter 11. Please check that you have read the extended version!**

The Apologist  
Chapter Twelve -  
Premonition

Jean woke up with a start in the middle of the night, in a sheath of cold sweat and sudden race-hearted awareness.

She lay frozen, staring at the ceiling with eyes wide open. Nothing. The room was quiet and dark, the only noise coming from the boards of the wooden boathouse, settling in the wind. Scott was sleeping the sleep of the just right beside her, night goggles on, his face awkwardly buried in the bend of his elbow for further safety. She scanned the surrounding: no one else around, only a mouse on a bag of onions in the cellar, its rudimentary thoughts barely a tickle at the edge of her perception.  
And yet someone had broadcasted, with urgency, loud enough to wake her.  
Nothing happened.  
She kept a psychic eye peeled as she lay still, waiting for her heart to stop thumping, but nothing followed along. The alarm clock blinked 3:16. There was still plenty of time to catch a good sleep, if she managed to relax...

_Again!  
_  
The peak of anguish surged like a splinter of ice from below still water; cold, deep, razor sharp.  
She soared from the bed and tk'ed her uniform out of the drawer and onto herself as quickly and quietly as possible. Scott groaned when the mattress settled, but otherwise showed no sign of awakening. She levitated down the stairs, leaning no weight on the creaky wooden steps. The thought pattern originated from somewhere outside; Jean opened the front door and froze on the threshold.

_I'm still dreaming, all right...  
_  
The familiar expanse of the Spuytin Dyvil, the path to the Mansion and the Graymalkin grounds had vanished, replaced by the sunlit streets and skyscrapers of New York City. The nearest building was the old X-Factor base, before the Ship and the kids and little Nathan. A crowd - really more of a mob - had gathered into the plaza below, roaring and yelling like the spectators of a gladiator fight; despite her wariness, her feet dragged her towards the clamor. As she neared, she was able to make out what the crowd was chanting:

"X-Fac-tor! X-Fac-tor!"

_Oh.  
_  
She remembered that riot. Those two poor misfits were trying to take out the mutant hunters, unaware that X-Factor was only a lure for racists and fundies, that they really were trying to save...but X-Factor couldn't and didn't make their life any less miserable. Jean pushed her way to the front of the human hedge. She had the power now, the power to talk inside their heads, to explain things... only that she couldn't even open her mouth. She was reliving a memory; this was the past, and her present self was only allowed to watch.

She caught a glimpse of herself: concentrated on the fight, her mouth a thin taut line in a harsh face. Scott, trying to pass for an evil mutant, looked even worse, all tense muscles and clenched teeth; everything in his line of sight simply evaporated. Expletives were flying like angry bees. She remembered having yelled some of the worst ones. Muties, misfits, genefilth. Why not? She was mad. Mad at Scott, at all of them, liars, covering up for the Leader of the Pack; putting up a sham for her, the same way X-Factor was putting up a sham for the flatscans crowding the plaza. Oh, the irony.

_Okay, it was a bad idea. I had been away, I didn't _know _anything, anymore. I_ trusted_...  
Wait. This is not a dream.  
_  
Amusement, like a waft of warm breath, passed beside her. Someone was with her - the memory's owner. She struggled against the memory, and was aware of something hard and cold in her hand; she was still holding the door handle. With an all-out effort, she took a step back and slammed the door shut.

_There.  
_  
But her senses told her it wasn't over. The air was warm and damp, almost stifling, and carried an unpleasant scent of iron and tar...  
As she fought to escape the plaza, the Morlock tunnels had crept behind her and taken hold of the entrance. Bodies were piled knee deep, bleeding, twitching, exhaling; but this time she knew better than to try and change anything. This was the past; they were _not_ alive; _not_ thoughts, only static, and there was nothing she could do for them anyway, just like the first time.

She waded through the miry galleries to the main tunnel, where pressed earth gave way to concrete and bricks; and finally, through a manhole, the sky. She peered inside the window of the closest building and could not place, at first, what she was seeing. Hundreds of people lying on the floor, some groaning, pleading, some covered with sheets, lying motionless, beyond help. Then she spotted more familiar figures walking to and fro among the rows of bodies, dressing wounds, checking IV lines or simply comforting the wounded, and recognized the place: the old Blackbird hangar, jury-rigged into an infirmary.  
A kneeling figure stood up and headed towards her, and she found herself looking suddenly Joseph in the eyes.

She started, taken aback with the surprise, but her host's eyes barely flinched. The man she had mistook for Joseph was really Magneto, and when he came nearer, hard-eyed and stern-faced, she wondered how she could have made such a mistake.  
Magneto looked infinitely old; tired, spent. He was carrying an armful of ragged linens, which he dropped onto a heap on the floor and a slim, young Cannonball picked the bloody bundle up and carried them away; STDs and Legacy were still years in the coming. One by one she spotted the other people in the teams; but she had to look twice before recognizing Storm. Her snowy white hair was soiled with mud and blood; her Olympic grace was gone, together with her powers. She was carrying a dead body out of the hangar, to make room for more wounded; just a woman too young, doing too hard a work, exercised muscles standing out on her arms.

Then she saw herself.

"Can't be" she whispered, and, as a matter of fact, it wasn't. There was something definitely foreign about this other self, and she knew why as soon as Magneto approached her.

"Madeline" he called. "Any news from Muir?"

"Kurt and Peter are... stable," she replied. "For now."

The way she evaded his gaze made Magneto suspicious. He took a step forward, holding her by an arm.

"Shadowcat?"

Her silence was eloquent. His head hung low, Magnus returned to the rows of injured Morlocks.

Once the shock was over, Jean fought back. She repelled those alien memories, felt them tumble in disarray, and rebuilt her shields, preparing for an attack that did not come.

_What do you want from me?_ she screamed soundlessly, and shook her head so hard that her backbone made snapping noises.  
For all answer, her defences were bypassed like an open door, and the scenery changed once more.

The air was brisk against her flushed cheeks, and scented with foreign flowery smells. She opened her eyes again to the greenish light of nighttime in the desert; the sparse bushes and carved rocks conspired in creating unearthly shapes under the moonlight. In the distance, a lonely rock rose to break the flatness of the horizon. It resembled a lying elephant and suddenly her body started to tremble, frozen with the sudden realization that if she'd only turn her head and look up at the figure towering over her body... if only her sight wouldn't darken so...

Right when Jean was most eager for the vision to continue, she found herself facing the closed door, at the ground floor of her house in Westchester.  
There would be no scenes after the least one, she realized, because that one was the last her host had ever seen.

He was dead. She had been running half the night, shoved around by the mind of a dead man.  
A dead man who was trying to warn her about... stuff. But who? Mastermind? No, his illusions had a different flavor... and one she had got acquainted to. Jason Wyngarde had a daughter², though... and yet, the mind with which she had been in contact had a distinctive maleness to it.

_The Shadow King?_ But why would he ever warn them - assuming that anything was left of him after the last encounter with the Professor.  
Speaking of whom... the last possibility stepped on, unmentionable, unthinkable, sending splinters of ice up her spine.

_Charles?  
_  
There was no answer. The gaping silence seemed to mock her.

She awoke again in her bed, with a sigh, cursing Sam's pork chops. Scott muttered something unintelligible as she squirmed and stirred, and she sent through a reassuring motion that had him humming and settling for a sounder sleep. Lucky bastard. She made a mental note to herself not to allow any more X-Men from below the Mason-Dixon to the kitchen for at least a month.

_What a nightmare._

The alarm beeped at 7:00, pulling Scott out of a deep, though agitated, sleep. He sat slowly on the edge of the bed and went through the change of glasses routine, with careful movements, trying not to wake Jean. He settled for making breakfast in the tiny kitchen instead of going to the mansion; he vaguely remembered Jean stirring and moving... if she'd had a hard night, a bit of lie-in would probably cheer her up.  
By the time he put the tray on her bedside table, however, his mouth was a thin straight line and his brow was furrowed.

"Is there something I should know, Jean?" he asked before she could speak, trying to make the question sound casual and failing.

She frowned, eyes still closed. "What do you mean?"

"There's a trail of sand from the entrance door to this room, and you're wearing your costume in bed."

* * *

_Next: Gambit pays a visit to the MedLab. Yet again. Only this time, he's walking in._  
--  
¹: X-Factor 7: Jean finds out that Scott is married to Madeline, and has a son from her. She is not amused. In the meanwhile, two radioactively-contaminated mutants, feeling that their death is near, mount a suicide attack against the X-Factor base. To divert them without harm, Beast, Iceman, and Cyclops dress up in 'mutant' uniforms as the X-Terminators and pretend to reinforce the assault; a jury-rigged formation of X-Factor (Jean and others) drives the 'aggressors' away.  
²: Well, two actually, but the X-Men just know one by now. Wolverine and Gambit first met her in their 'Victims' miniseries. 


	13. 11 Recalling

**1**

**Disclaimer:** Owner: Marvel. Money: none. Suing: useless.  
**Rating:** M. See the first chapter for summary and stuff.  
**Note:**Wheee, an update, finally! Baby's eating up all my spare time. When she smiles, it's worth it, though. A heartfelt _thank you_ to **Germankitty** for the invaluable help with Magneto's lines.

The Apologist  
Chapter Thirteen -  
Recalling

One would say, looking back, that such an accident was just waiting to happen.  
But hindsight is always 20/20; the morning had been average to the point of boring, with another routine training session, and no one would have expected any of what was to follow. Troubles, for the X-Men, usually happened _outside_ the Danger Room. 

The exercise was basic: a few minutes of one-to-one combat, then a simple search-and-retrieve mission, mainly to help the rookie blend in with the rest of the team and visa versa. Unsurprisingly, Joseph's presence had quite an effect on the teamwork: the First Five felt uneasy at having a faded version of their arch-nemesis fighting alongside them, while the others remembered a very different man - and acted accordingly. In all, the team was taking losses and no one was faring well. Gambit, still deemed unfit for training and assigned to Control Room duty, was pouting. Warren, who had 'died' earlier in the simulation, stood alongside the Cajun as if he wasn't able to mind the readings for himself, which did not help his mood one bit. 

"What de hell's dat man doin'..." he snarled. Warren leaned over the monitors, and the two men watched with growing frustration as Joseph screwed up... again. Rather than flying cover for Rogue, who was carrying her hostage to safety, he had turned in mid-air and was buzzing the nearby building; there was a spectacular display of fireworks and Joseph just fell from the sky, limp as a doll.

"_End simulation!_" Warren yelled, but Gambit was already operating the switches ten at a time. The Shi'ar anti-gravity generators powered up and Joseph's fall ended with a hover.

"May ask why you seem unable to follow. One. _Simple_._ORDER?_" Cyclops asked after the siren had signalled the end of the simulation.

Joseph took his time answering - realism was set to the maximum and the shots he had taken were real stunners.

"I sensed... a sniper... in the building. I thought I'd... draw fire... from Rogue," he explained through labored breaths.

"Ah'm invulnerable, remember?" she said.

"He was not, though," Joseph replied, pointing at the hostage still in her arms. It looked fake and a little pathetic now, without the holographic embellishments: definitely not something worth being tased over. Joseph accepted Bishop's hand and stood up.

"And I could have deviated a common bullet," he continued. "What did they use? A pulse rifle?"

"Maser," was Scott's terse reply. "Never rule out the possibility you're being lured into a trap." Cyclops shook his head. "Gambit - relaunch sim. Warren, take place. Get going, people! Let's see if we can make good this time, just for a change."

The end of the session could never have been more welcome.

"Last to the showers is an X-Baby" Betsy laughed starting to run for the exit, only to have Sam rocketing in pursuit.

_He can take narrower turns now_, Joseph thought, strangely pleased. When did Sam take wide turns, and why should that concern him? He would ask later, and hope that some-X-one could be bothered to answer.  
Anyway, showering came first. Unused as he was at prolonged hand-to hand, powerless fight, he had gotten fatigued, and the uniforms were good for protection, but not for perspiration. He followed the others to the shower room, chose a stall and took off his clothes. The shower booth consisted of just two shallow lateral walls with no door that didn't seem to offer much in terms of privacy, and a weird feeling took hold of him. Suddenly queasy, he felt for a handle, trying to figure out how such a mundane setting could clench his throat shut and hasten his heartbeat so.

The water went cold, then freezing, then stopped. A loud hiss went out the sprinklers and someone complained about the & plumbing.  
An instant later, it was mayhem. Pipes sprung off the walls, flogging the air. Shrapnel from broken tiles scuffed naked shoulders and a barrage of cries filled the air.

"What the fu..."

"Hit the deck!"

"Everybody move out! Move!" Scott yelled, feeling his stall with both hands in search for his eye gear, thinking frantically. He had been caught in the worst possible moment, with his eyes closed as he was exchanging the visor for the goggles, and the stainless steel shelf had flown off and hit him before he could react - but not before he realized the situation. Joseph had caved in and the madman had returned. There was no simpler answer...  
A hand got hold of his shoulder and the air froze in his lungs...

"Your visor."

It was Bishop's voice; Scott sighed with relief as he donned his headset. The man had kept Buckethead at bay at the peak of his powers... if there was someone who could deal with a crazed Master of the Magnetism, that was Bish. Scott signaled the man to stay behind him and approached the stall that Joseph had taken. The icy and tile shards made it a pain to walk.

"Joseph, it's me, Scott. Are you okay?" he asked, aware of the futility of all this, already expecting to stumble into the figure in purple cape, face hidden beneath the elaborate helm - Magneto probably would weave himself a chain-mail outfit out of water taps faster that you could say 'unstable molecules'. 

Joseph had not moved. He was sitting on the floor, stark naked, arms wrapped around his knees, head leaning against the wall, eyes distant, unfocused.

"Joseph?" 

The other man turned gray eyes on him. Hollow, hawkish, haunted eyes. "_Es gibt keine Hoffnungen_... It's useless, my friends. I realized too late. I have already breathed, and you... you shouldn't have stayed."

That detachment made Scott's skin crawl, but he cut it out. He concentrated inwards, calling to the part of Jean that was always with him. She might pull Joseph out of this fascination… Bishop, however, seemed to read his mind.

"He might not react well to a telepath," he cautioned. 

"You have a point…" Cyclops stared at him for a moment, then jolted, amazed at the possibility that flashed before his eyes. "Go get the Cajun."

Bishop made a strange face but complied, leaving Scott to take care of the confused Joseph, who was staring at them like they were ghosts. He tried again.

"It's over, man. It's been fifty years ago. You survived. You are in Westchester now, in America, in 1995. Wake up, for heaven's sake!" He prodded the other man on an arm, to persuade him that he was not hallucinating.

Joseph looked at an invisible watch on his wrist, then held it, almost amused at himself. Of course he had no watch. Not that he needed one. "More than ten minutes. Must be something experimental," he commented in an uninvolved tone. 

Scott choked a curse. At least Joseph had not resumed the battle for mutant supremacy yet, and didn't seem keen on destroying the mansion any further, but a mind-blanked Magneto re-enacting Auschwitz was not something he wanted to have to deal with.

"Need help, O Fearless Leader?" someone spoke behind him.

"Yeah, Remy. Can you do something before he pulls the ceiling above our heads?"

"C'n try." He sat on the floor in front of Joseph, and his jeans got soaked immediately. "Joe, can you hear me?"

"I've tried that, you know," Scott reported. "We're just not reaching. You've got to do your special number."

"My_what?_"

"The one you pulled out on Betsy. And don't you try quibbling."

Gambit's jaw moved awkwardly as he figured out the direction things had taken. Scott made a gesture of invitation towards him. Besides the emergency, it was a unique opportunity to see Gambit's hidden power at work.  
The Cajun chewed his lower lip, pensive, then at last he spoke.

"_Jos...__**Magnus**__, answer, please. Do you know me?_"

Bewildered eyes focused into the Cajun's. "_Wohnen Sie in der Zigeunerbaracke?_"

The three X-Men exchanged a furtive glance. This was getting uglier by the minute.  
Gambit rubbed his stubble, absently.

"Haven' done dis in a while..." he muttered. "It's gon' take time."  
He crouched among the debris, with his back to the wall and his eyes closed. Cyclops squatted aside, determined not to lose a single movement. Had the light shone brighter than usual beneath the Cajun's eyelids? Or was that just a trick of the flickering lights?

Minutes passed, then Joseph started, and Bishop with him.

"_You..._" he murmured. But Gambit gave no sign of having heard.

Tentatively, Scott took one slender wrist and found it strangely limp and cold. An instant later, he yelped in pain; his hand was smoking. Gambit, aware again, had charged the layer of water between their skins - and was sporting a hand-shaped patch of angry red onto his arm.  
As Joseph looked around him with a dazed expression and Scott puffed onto his scalded hand, the Cajun shot him a venomous look.

"Appreciate your attention, chief, _mais_ Gambit don' like bein' felt."

* * *

Hank removed the electrodes, carefully folded the sphygmomanometer and put it away. "So far, I can rule out every known organic cause for such a paroxysm. You may stand up."

Joseph sat on the litter, massaging his temples where the small suction cups had been attached. 

"Thank you. So, doctor, I demolished the mansion on account of a tantrum?"

Hank's massive teeth shone for an instant. "It seems likely that you overreacted to a particularly troublesome recollection. I would hardly describe the incident as a 'tantrum'.

"Do you know what happened, Joseph?" This was Scott. He had been standing in a far corner, waiting for Beast to be done with his examinations.

"Partly. The last thing I remember as _me_ is this hiss coming out of the sprinklers, and then... it was like a film was reeled inside my head. Not really hallucinations - I still knew what was real and what was not - but I could not stop them coming. When you came back for me, Scott, I... saw you, but didn't just see _you_. Reality mingled with the visions and I guessed that mutants were due for _Selektion_ too." He let out a shivery sigh. "The things that I had in my mind..."

Hank adjusted the glasses on his nose. "Just one more question... Can you describe what Remy did to you?"

"Not entirely." Joseph frowned, trying to reorder his thoughts. "I was... _pulled_. I saw a place, and knew I had to get there _immediately_, and do _something_, and that place was here. I'm afraid I can't be more precise than this... it lasted less than a heartbeat."

"By the way, Bishop reports you said something. You said, 'you'. What were your thoughts at the time?"

For a split second, Joseph looked Beast in the eyes. "I told you," he said. "It was too fast." 

Beast looked away. "In this case, I think we're done."

"Well then. If you don't need me anymore, I think I'll go mend what's left of the plumbery." Joseph left and Hank started pulling off his gloves and labcoat. 

"I guess today's incident poses a question," he reasoned.

Scott snorted. "Whether to put him into the Blue or the Gold Team?"

"Yeah, active duty's a moot point now, is it?" Hank nodded towards the door. "No, I meant his identity. That memory came from Magneto's past. He's not a telepath and he wasn't faking, which leaves us with a limited number of possibilities."

"And we've kept him sheltered enough that I can't figure whence he could have absorbed the notion," Scott continued.

"Exactly. 'Due for selection'... I think _I_ will be scared of showers for the rest of my life. At least we were made privy to Gambit's mysterious power."

"I don't know what that was, Hank, but it definitely wasn't Gambit's power," Scott revealed, and then, to Beast's obvious puzzlement: "Betsy told me he walked up to her and looked her in the eye. And that's just what he did _not_ do today."

"And if it wasn't for Bobby's little practical joke, we may never have found out," Hank sighed. "Live and learn, I always say." 

* * *

In the corridor, Joseph walked past Robert Drake, who was sitting on the couch and staring at his shoes, content of being ignored. Scott's strafing had been grating, much the worse since it had taken place in front of the rest of the team - most of which seemed little inclined to understanding. Joseph could have laughed at the irony of it all. Here he was, after having half destroyed the only intact part of the mansion, and he was being pitied and patted on the shoulder while the Iceman got his head chewed off.  
Drake had been noticeably laconic in his self-defense - he simply could not resist the opportunity; freezing the water in the plumbings was an old favorite from his bag of tricks. Now he was looking forward to a week's labor of replacing broken tiles and fixtures, and all the happiness for having returned to Westchester had vanished.

Joseph patted on his shoulder as he passed him by. "For what is worth, I'm sorry," he said. "It took me by surprise."

"Yeah" the Iceman replied without lifting his head. He shrugged, rubbed his eyes as if he was endlessly tired. "Never mind that." He stood up and left.

* * *

The door opened with a shuffle. Gambit didn't bother with turning on the rows of neon tubes: the light coming from the ajar door was more than enough.  
The infamous Legacy Bay was in the farthest corner, and most of the stuff had been moved to make room for the Class III hoods and the sterile chambers. The orange airtight suits were hanging from their hooks like ghosts of hanged men, their visors reflecting light like malevolent cyclopic eyes. He snorted. There would be a malevolent Cyclopic eye staring at him indeed, if he got caught messing around in the lab for no good reason.  
He started moving. With his unparalleled stakanovism, Hank would probably start working at 5 AM.

The object of his quest had to be in one of the -80 ºC fridges. Curtains of frozen vapor cascaded from the sides of the freezer as he picked the lock and lifted the heavy lid. He opened box after box, coming upon rows and rows of neatly labeled vials, Some had names on them, other just numbers; but in the end he found what he was looking for - right in time before his fingers went totally numb.

"Tally ho," he murmured. "Always be blessed the label freaks."

The small box, clearly marked as JOSEPH - I.D. - AMPFLSTR, contained three yellow-capped vials, one marked _Jos_, one _Piet_, one _Wan_. Beast's ties with the Avengers were useful at times… He had really hoped for a sample from the real McCoy - pun not intended - but was prepared to settle for less. It had been too long ago, the mansion had been destroyed too many times since and the man had departed on less than friendly terms with the residents. The Maximoffs' blood would do as well. 

He took the two vials from his hidden pocket, smiling grimly. Hooray for scientific progress, he thought. These days, one could order PCR primers online and have them delivered the following day. A long way ahead from the cumbersome machine in the theatre basement, with its ever-lingering stench of ammonia and vinegar.  
He donned a new pair of latex gloves and resuspended the tailored oligos in sterile water. The gloves were sized for Hank and sagging on his slender hands, but only basic human dexterity was required for this kind of job.  
Strange thing that Hank hadn't run some further assay, but what with the Legacy virus, Onslaught, and damage assessment after the Dark Beast's take-over, discovering the secret of Magneto's renewed youth was clearly not on top of his priorities.  
Gambit opened one started PCR kit, aligned the vials on an ice bucket, switched on the thermal cycler, and set to work.

Two hours later, his watch buzzed silently, awakening him from a less than pleasant nap in the back corner of the room. The faint, chemical smell and the soft whirr of the equipment in perpetual functioning had found their way into his unconscious mind and he awoke mumbling sheepish excuses to a man that couldn't be there...

"Left de cage open just a minute, she seemed asleep…"

He blinked, shivered, stood up. He was in Westchester. There was work to be done. Five microliters from each sample went into the gel he had poured earlier.

In twenty minutes, he knew.  
A loud hiss escaped clenched teeth as Gambit stared at the bands on the gel. Two neat and further up in their lanes, one fainter, smeared, lower.

Degraded. 

_Like a taped TV show, _he thought._ One I wasn't keen to watch at that._

It was a good thing that he had not lost the old knowledge. He had made no mistakes: the experiment was a success. No chance of being wrong, no need to look any further.

_Of all the miserable luck_, he grumbled.

* * *

_Next: thank you for the memories._

It's hopeless.

Are you from the Gipsy barrack?


	14. 12 Restoring

Disclaimer: Owner: Marvel. Money: none. Suing: useless.  
**Ratings: **G. See the first chapter for summary and stuff.  
**Note:** This one is dedicated to all the procrastinators, and the people who have to put up with them.

The Apologist  
Chapter Fourteen -  
Restoring

'The people here are good  
They tell me what I should have done  
And offer what I could  
I'm good, all is good  
All's well, no complaints  
And when I feel regret  
I get down on my knees and pray'

R.E.M., _The Apologist_

_

* * *

_

"I've done... questionable things" the dark dressed man confessed as he faced his creator; fair hair, pale face, staring wild icy eyes that spoke madness all along. The faint blue light from the monitor flickered and danced in the rec. room. It was a bright moonlit night outside, but on the TV the rain went on and on just like the flavourless music.

Sprawled on the sofa, lost in his thoughts, Joseph watched the action taking place before him without really seeing it. There was another play going on behind his hooded eyelids, bleaker and darker yet. Joseph went through the fragment he had recollected that morning, trying to squeeze some more detail - a name, a place, a voice: anything strong enough to serve as a stepping stone. A voice in his head, getting stronger every day, whispered that he was just wasting time. Somewhere out there, there was something that needed to be done; but the details, as always, were lost in the haze.

He blinked. Had the white-haired mad man just said, "_I want my life, fucker_?" That was something he could empathize with.

Somebody screamed in agony and Joseph barely raised his eyes as he took another careful sip of iced water from his glass.

_Needless killing by the crazy-eyed runaway, #5. Because you know the bloody movie needed another._

The door opened silently and he propped himself up on the elbows, dropping the remote that had been lying on his chest; he caught it by power and floated it back onto the coffee table.  
Gambit, of course; who else, at such an ungodly hour. The stench of stale smoke had soaked his clothes and preceded him like a forewarning. He stepped into the quiet rec. room, detected the form lying on the couch, nodded in greeting.

"Dat you in dere, Joe? Still up?"

The token question carried enough a trace of genuine concern that Joseph felt compelled to give an urbane answer.

"Not tired enough to sleep. I've slumbered all day, from your doing or Hank's. Now I feel like a coiled spring, and it's too late for everything."

_Too late for everything... Why? Where did I get this notion?_

He was abruptly parted from his musings. A faint _twang_ and the _feel_ of metal moving, and he felt Gambit's staff nudging him in the belly.

"A li'l workout in de Danger Room? Cures insomnia jus' fine."

With barely a thought, Joseph removed the offending weapon from the hollow of his navel, making it sway dangerously in Gambit's grip.

"Definitely not. I've had enough for today, and the mansion too."

Another prod. "It good for lazy bones, too."

"LeBeau," Joseph growled. "Poke me once more with that damned thing, and you'll need surgery to get it back."

"Hmm." The Cajun's interest turned conveniently towards the movie. "Ooh, but dis is great. Which one is it? De Director's Cut?"

"Sorry. I've missed the titles and my knowledge of Western filmography is as appalling as everything else's. Is this supposed to be good?"

"_In-sight-ful,_" the Cajun spelled. "Y' don' like it? I'm a sucker for dis flick. Makes Gambit all soppy."

"Insightful? The chronicle of a killing spree?"

"It ain' dat. 'Tis about humanity... about conscience. Compassion, even."

"I'll take your word for it, but now it's just too late." Joseph stood up and turned the TV off in the middle of a gunshot. Looking at the wall past the screen, he muttered: "What you did today was quite... something."

"Don' mention it," said Gambit, going tense again.

"Can you fix my memories?"

"No."

"I knew you'd say that."

The Cajun shook his head. "I _can't,_" he said, quite forcedly. "An' I wouldn' if I were you. At dis rate, you'll get dem back soon enough."

"But now I feel _hollow_, Remy. Something that nobody's been able to mend, not even Rogue -"

Too late, Joseph realized how Gambit would take this one. Mentally, he calculated the addition of a thrashed rec. room to the damage bill already on his account, and figured himself an old geezer, chained to the sink, washing dishes for the X-Men's grand-grandchildren.

Gambit's answer was not one he was expecting.

"I know how dat feels."

Joseph thought of a suitable answer, but found none. He picked up the glass from the coffee table and headed for the kitchen, only to find that obnoxious bo staff across his path. He looked at Gambit.

"Not dat way" the thief explained, blocking the way.

Joseph resisted the sudden urge to twist that absurd stick and knock the Cajun a couple teeth loose. Why did he always have to be so _theatrical_?

"Y' want answers, we go to de War Room" the thief suggested. "Jus' consider... dere be no goin' back once y'know."

Joseph wavered. The opportunity that was being offered to him might be the first and last. It didn't take a mind-reader to realize that the X-Men would never, ever, help him regain what he had lost. They knew Magneto better than him; this did not mean, however, that they knew better than him in any other respect.

On the other hand, what was Gambit playing at? After their fight and everything, it was hard to believe he wanted to ease his pain. Most likely, he was just trying to set him up and get rid of a perceived competitor. Joseph asked, just to see what the sugarcoating was supposed to taste like.

"Why are you doing this?"

Gambit shrugged. "I don' like de way dey treat you."

"Sounds suspiciously close to what I'd like to hear."

"No. What you want to hear is dat I hope y' get evil again so I can murder you. You don' get sympathy much, Joe."

"Not from you, no."

"'Course not. I have my reasons for not wantin' you in here. Still, it's a bargain to you."

The twin ember lights danced up and down as Gambit nodded. The staff went shoulder arms. "Yes. Chickenin' out?"

Joseph grinned. "After seeing through the damned Onslaught? Lead the way."

The corridor leading to the War Room was patrolled by computerized sensors scanning seventeen different wavelengths. Pressure sensors were hidden under the floor tiles for invisible trespassers and a dense infrared grid saw to the flying ones.  
Not now. The water covering the floor was two inches deep in places; the cameras were motionless, blind, and the grid shorted out. Joseph had overheard that repairs were at a still point because 'Forge was staying off Westchester as much as he could'. In the meanwhile anybody could come and go at will... provided that they could elude the watch.

"Who's making the rounds tonight?"

"_C'est moi, pourquoi_?" Gambit replied, treading carefully over a particularly battered section of floor.

"Just asking."

"Well, here we are. Y' can't open the door, tho."

The War Room door spelled security a mile away. The metal it was made of was unlike anything he had ever seen before: alien, adamantine, its smooth surface neither dull nor shiny. Only his power told him that the door was made of four sections; the naked eye could see no joins. Pensively, he ran a hand along the surface, appreciating the texture beneath. And yes, he couldn't open the door under his own steam: the alloy was amagnetic.

"You like it, Joe? It's Shi'ar, stardestroyer hull alloy. De whole room's wrapped in it. Couldn' scratch it with an atomic bomb."

The War Room was on a different wiring than the corridor, and its own security was on. Gambit walked up to a black panel on the wall and pressed his hand against it; red beams crisscrossed over his palm and face.

"Welcome to the War Room, Gambit" said a recorded, neutral voice. The door slid open without a whisper; from the inside, dim whirrs and blinks of running hardware welcomed the two men.  
Gambit sat at the main console, typed a few commands, then stood up and gestured for Joseph to sit as the screen became alive with menus.

"There isn't much in here" Joseph commented after a while. "Professor Xavier called me a friend when we met... but there's next to nothing in here. He obviously knew me better than this, but he didn't put much to record."

The thief nodded. "Before he gave himself in to de Feds, he was destroyin' records for days."

Joseph pursed his lips. "To protect me."

"To protect _his people_" Gambit hissed, slapping a hand on his tight. "Piot... _People_. Xavier ain't the Lamb of God. Keep dat in mind."

"Why all the anger, Remy?"

Gambit seemed to deflate. He sprawled on an armchair nearby, thoughtfully rubbing his face, and when he finally answered, the anger had subsided to resignated bitterness.  
"Prof's never been an easy man to grasp. His doin's, dey don' always make sense. An' neither do you. Remember dat asteroid M I told you about? Blown to hell, courtesy of a maggot you had the misfortune of trustin'. You sacrificed your life, and your people's, to grant us a safe escape, 'cos you'd been de one at fault. What's funny, no one ever mentioned it again. Sort of taken for granted."

Joseph leaned back, staring at the ceiling. An unusual sensation, relief, flooded through him. To know he had been capable of other feelings rather than utter, stark raving madness...  
...then again, he couldn't afford to believe. The price could turn out to be just too high.

"But something else happened, didn't it? Or I wouldn't be on close guard."

"Yeah. You had survived, and got crazier and crazier until dere was no chance left to reason with you."

"That's why Jean Grey said I had betrayed you?"

Gambit shrugged. "Dat was before my time."

"You mean you _don't_ know..."

Another shrug, followed by a lazy, catlike yawn.

How strange to hear that. Ten minutes before, Joseph was still thinking that this was a setup on Gambit's part to have him kicked out of the mansion; although he should've known that was a pious dream. They would have never allowed him to go unless his memory was restored - and his memory would never be restored, not in the cozy cage of Westchester. Actually, they might not allow him to leave - period - whether his memory was restored or not. And who could blame them?

"Well, long story, but let's say dat de old mainframe was backed up as is. Don' think anyone bothered to clear up - 's not like we have a shortage of disk space."

Joseph logged on as Xavier, Michael. Somehow surprisingly, no alarm sounded. The system did not kick him out, freeze or raise an eyebrow in surprise. The cursor kept flashing, patiently waiting for him to make up his mind and type the password.

"How are the security features?"

"Anyone types de wrong password three times in a row, de account gets frozen" was the reply. "Den only Logan knows de code to unlock it."

Joseph frowned. The odd choice was well thought out. The idea of bribing, blackmailing, or coaxing the Wolverine into giving the code away was ridiculous. Three attempts were all he had. If only he could remember more of his past, know what events...

Wait. Maybe he didn't _need_ to know. Magneto had been deaged once, his memories altered. He wouldn't trust his memory when it could be altered or vanish... the answer had to be something absolute. Something he would have known, anytime, anywhere, just because he was what he was.

"Mutant."

Too obvious, too clumsy, too generic. The interface reacted with a _beep_ of disapproval.

_Not just a mutant_.  
_Magneto_.  
_Me_.

The muting of forces and fields, wrap him like a constant music, was dull and inadequate once put into numbers, but Joseph typed in Maxwell's equation for the electromagnetic field, hoping that he had not used a nonstandard notation.

The screen became alive with activity. Several prompts asked him whether he wanted to change the password ('later'), perform a system update ('later'), or switch to the newer interface ('No'). Then only a frame was left, flickering blue against the dark background:

Welcome, Xavier Michael  
Your last access was: 904 days ago  
Last file edited: "Farewell-wrt" (view/edit?)  
Last file viewed: "Antartica-map" (view/edit?)

Joseph selected "Farewell" to open, and several minutes later he sat in front of the screen, mesmerized.

_"Charles,  
I do not know whether you will ever read this.  
I have failed. There are no softer words to describe the outcome of my efforts. I have thought of a thousand ways to tell you what happened since you entrusted me with the direction of the Xavier Institute, but none is sufficient to summarize the extent of the tragedies that have happened during this time.  
Of all the people that you entrusted to my direction, I have managed to preserve none.  
Half of the X-Men died in Dallas, fighting a supernatural entity called the Adversary. Since then, there have been reports of sightings, but too sketchy and contradictory to sustain anything but the faintest hope. A handful of them have survived, and just because they had suffered such severe injuries from a previous attack, that they couldn't hold their own in a fight. They are weak from their recent wounds, and shaken from the loss. Requesting that they take the place of their fallen comrades would be suicidal other than callous.  
Yet this tragedy, that would break the will of lesser men, still wouldn't make me retreat from the duty I took upon myself to take care of your people, if it wasn't for something I have discovered only a few weeks ago. Your first student and former X-Man, Cyclops, has formed a group that hunts mutants for profit. I can't help feeling disgusted each time I think of it. They are the first X-Men; the same ones who opposed me in endless battles, because they believed your Dream, and not mine.  
I have seen this before: people turning in their brothers for a morsel of bread, for the illusion of being spared. Worse, I have been one of them and will carry that shame with me until my dying day. But I really thought better of Summers and the others, even when they were opposing my allies and me. They were your first students; I still cannot figure how their moral sense could have twisted to such an extent. I have wondered whether my taking direction of the Institute may have been a factor in this, but could not make any sense of it.  
Am I such a wicked man, that they'd rather slaughter their own kin, rather than have them safe and under my lead? Have you been you such a poor judge of character?  
Maybe you are, since you genuinely believed I could replace you.  
No, forget this. This is me, trying to share some of the blame around. I accepted the burden of my own free will; and I crushed under his weight.  
I have outstretched my moral more than I ever would have allowed, Charles. I took Storm's advice to become the White King of the Hellfire Club. The gesture was meant to get us some allies: it has procured only more bitter enemies. The Club is divided, his members engaged in internal power struggles. Whichever faction I choose to support - and I have to choose, lest they join forces against me - open war with the others is assured.  
The younger students, the "New Mutants", assumed the worst from this alliance; they no longer accept my authority and are actually hiding from me. Given the situation, I have given up with their search. I do not know where they are; I merely hope they are safer than they would be near me. One of them, young Douglas Ramsey, already died as a result of my negligence. Ilyana Rasputin's fate is barely better. In a struggle to overcome her demonic side, she reverted to the girl she was before Belasco kidnapped her. She's alive: surrounded by strangers speaking an incomprehensible language, in a foreign country that's afraid and wary of those like her. I've had enough of that to know what it is like; I will return her to her family, and this will be my last action as director of the Xavier Institute.  
I am leaving now. Not because I am receding from my promise, but because there are no people left to protect. I have tried your path, Charles, and people have died. Good people who did not deserve to die. And I realize only now I was never meant to act like this; I deceived you and deceived myself in thinking I could.  
It seems that unfathomable forces are at work, driving me back to the path that I had abandoned to follow yours. It is perhaps my destiny, the sentence for my despicable survival, never to save the ones I love, only to avenge them. From now on, I will remain alone; as far as possible from the people I love, pretending not to care, because I have made enemies that would hurt and harm them because in doing so they will hurt and harm me. Alone, I can deal with anything our opponents will be able to deliver; alone, there will be no rules of engagement._

_I hope that we will meet again one day, and be able to reason. And the compassion that I accused you of lavishly dispensing to your enemies may be spared for an old friend._

_Your *brother*,  
M._

_P.S. I now recognize that I have written 'hope' three times more than I ought to, given the present circumstances. It seems that you finally broke through."_

Joseph came to himself with a shiver. How much time had passed? He had been completely absorbed in reading, and Gambit had fallen asleep in his armchair, but awoke immediately once prodded.

"Was it wort' it?" he asked.

Joseph nodded in silence. He logged off and ended session, then followed Gambit's instructions to stand aside as the thief cancelled his fingerprints from the keyboard and furniture.

Joseph gritted his teeth as the burning, scraping sensation in his hip reached a new, unprecedented peak, and he once again decided that _"it will hurt like a bitch"_ was a gross underestimation.  
Bone biopsies hurt like a rabid bitch with an adamantium denture and _lockjaw_. But he had agreed to sit for the test as Hank "tested a theory" because he would be able to chat Dr. McCoy, and so far he was succeeding.

"Why?" he repeated.

"Excuse me?"

"Why do you think he'd never tell you?"

Hank sighed. The needle twisted, scraping the bone again, and Joseph wondered whether that had been casual, unconscious or deliberate.  
For a few minutes there was silence. Joseph studied the dance of jaw muscles under the blue fur, waiting.  
The needle was pulled out, together with a drop or two of Joseph's impossibly dark blood. Hank inserted the tissue fragment into a cryostat. A white cloud of liquid nitrogen spread onto the workbench, pouring onto the floor, and finally Hank answered.

"To protect us."

Joseph frowned. "Withholding vital information in order to protect you?" _That sounds familiar_.

"We were young, most of us emotionally traumatized from our powers... from ourselves. Then came the Sentinels. Even with the enthusiasm of our young ages, we were frustrated and scared most of the time. And it was hard to save humans from the likes of you, when it was clear they didn't want to be saved by the likes of us. I'm sure some of us wouldn't mind if they got a taste of their own medicine. To think, or to know, you were motivated by an excess of righteousness, not by hatred and folly..."

Joseph could not repress a smile. "In other words, he feared you would join me?"

"The Professor exerted a noticeable amount of manipulation, be it conscious or not. And we were exposed to it for years."

"So you're telling me you couldn't trust me even if you wanted?"

"_Imprinting_, Joseph. Awareness does not lessen its power much. Considering what you did to us in the not-so-remote past, I'd say your deaging and amnesia were well deserved."

"Did _you_ do this to me?"

"Results will be ready in fifteen minutes," Hank informed, checking the machine. "And, for the record, _no_. Not even as a belated side effect."

Joseph accepted the answer quietly. The information he had collected was more than enough to keep him occupied for weeks, but to quit asking would draw suspicion. He took his shirt from the hanger and put it on, trying to move as if his back wasn't hurting like hell.

"What are you looking for, exactly?"

"Imbalances in the isotopic ratio of heavy oligoelements."

"Thanks, Beast. That does really help."

Hank adjusted the tiny glasses on the bridge of his nose, wondering how much of what he knew was suitable for Joseph.

"I'm trying to assess whether the I135 to I131 ratio of iodine in your bones deviated from the expected values."

"Drop the part I know, Doctor McCoy," Joseph broke off with a wry smile. "I think I would show unusual metal proportions in my bones **anyway**. So would you tell me exactly _what_ could be the reason for such an imbalance? Jogging daily on a radioactive wasteland?"

Hank took a deep breath.  
He did not want their oldest nemesis to return, and not only because of the inevitable battle that would ensue. This amnesiac Magneto possessed an intelligence and a genuine sensibility he had come to appreciate. He had retained bits of knowledge that could be used against the Legacy virus... provided that they could talk him out of that futile attempt at controlling Rogue's powers. And if that meant he had to protect Joseph from his former self, then so be it.

"All right. In so many words, Joseph: we have experienced contacts with people from a different universe. Sufficient data has been gathered about some of them to infer that visitors from that universe would... exhibit... such features."

"But what..."

"_Need to know_, Joseph. I'm sorry."

Hank pretended a sudden interest in the machinery so he wouldn't have to see Joseph fuming.  
He wasn't going to tell him about the Dark Beast. He would not tell _anyone_ if he could, even if Jean insisted on that Primal Scream balderdash and had suggested that they funded an Aped Anonymous.  
That _monster_ had had the same genes, the same upbringing, the same middle-class life until the age of eighteen that he himself had led. That his good nature, his decency, were due to a quirk in a couple of subatomic particles, rather than the appropriate outcome of good education and keen self-dominance, that was hard for Hank to believe. It was like the doppelganger had tainted his life by his very own existence. Why _him_ of all people?  
At least, if this milder, meeker Magneto _was_ from that world, it would have made sense, in a stochastic sort of way. Spin and antispin.

The mass spectroscopy finished its work with a beep, leaving Joseph astonished at the rapidity of the analysis. Sure, Shi'ar technology helped a lot, but it took some brain to get the most out of it. Hank produced a little smile, only to receive a blow once the results were displayed.

"Ratios fall within expected values for this universe," he announced flatly.

"You don't look happy."

"A lovely theory, destroyed by the brutal evidence of a fact."

Hank sighed and gave vent to his frustration by drop-kicking the sample tube in the waste bin.

* * *

_Next: one helluva kiss._


End file.
